Absent Simplicity
by logica
Summary: Murder undying emotions present memories GS
1. Default Chapter

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

They walked slowly on the muddy ground with each step being pulled down by the tenuous earth, temporarily swallowing their boots and the retrieval from those traps appeared quite difficult at times, even testing the patience of the unfortunate "victims". The rain had managed to affect the stable surface so much that the next step which Sara took swallowed her entire foreleg. "Shit!" she swore while trying to sustain her balance. "Nick!"

She called out to her colleague who had managed to get a few meters ahead of her.

"Yeah?" he shouted back.

"A little help here?" She waved towards her. The thickness of the mud had managed to consume her limb securely enough.

Taking hold of her right hand, Nick pulled back with enough might to release Sara's leg. The sudden tug, however, almost pushed him to the ground as the unexpected rush of Sara's weight towards him had temporarily disrupted his balance. This time it had been the brunette's turn to hold onto his arm, saving him from the total ruination of his uniform. "Thanks," he breathed out.

"Yeah, same to you," Sara nodded. "Damn this mud!" she complained while looking at the muddy imprint on her leg. It helped little that the smell was not a pleasant one.

"You'd think the killer could've chosen a drier location to dump… whatever he had to dump."

"No," Sara shook her head while brushing her forearm against her forehead. "He'd done it before it started raining."

"You think?" he mocked.

"Well… the mud is fresh and we can't see any traces, prints… so he must have come here while it had still been dry and then this rain comes and wipes away…," she stretched out her arms, "clues."

"Considering we still haven't seen the victim's body, I'd say your conclusion is…"

"What? Inconsistent?"

Nick shrugged.

"Fine." She threw her hand toward him and continued walking. "Let's see why they bothered to call in," she smirked and continued making her way through the muddy field.

Five minutes later, passing the yellow tape, the two CSIs entered a small, abandoned cabin when they finally stood in front of the crime scene. "Oh God," she breathed out in annoyance.

"Picasso, you think?"

Sara cocked an eye at him before returning her attention to the site in front of her:

On a small, rectangular, white, marble platform, two inches higher than the ground, was an almost two yard high statue made from the same material. The statue was of a young woman, sitting on her knees with her head down, sadly watching the object in her open arms. On those arms lay a lifeless body of a naked young male with only a small, black, velvet cloth that covered his testicles. Thick, vertical cuts went along his arms, beginning from his wrists, up to his shoulders with the dark, red blood peaking from the openings as small letters were carved in the skin. Very little space of his clear skin had been left on the arms.

His legs had the same engravings with only the torso being left untouched or unscarred. On the statue's forehead a large stain had been left with the remaining amount of blood making a trail on the woman's cheek before disappearing beneath her chin.

"I hate it when they go creative like this…" Sara pressed her lips.

* * *

"Cult ritual?"

With folded arms, Sara leaned back on the wall, surprised by her colleague's suggestion.

"It could be," Catherine spoke while holding a photograph of the victim's left arm.

"Miss Sidle?" a young man with thin red glasses appeared at the door.

"Yes?"

"There's a young girl asking for you."

"Who?"

"Um… Evelyn Presnowitz."

"Great. Thank you," Sara nodded towards him, sending the young man away.

"Who's Evelyn?" Catherine watched Sara flatly.

"My little helper on this case," Sara gave a beaming grin without telling her whether Evelyn would agree to help. Lately the relationship between these two women had become strained and Sara avoided sharing too much information with Catherine unless it involved a case.

* * *

Grissom walked steadily and quietly, making his way towards the stale atmosphere and close grayness of his office when something made him stop. Trying to sharpen the image through the thick glass wall, Grissom saw a young girl, possibly a teen sitting in the small room absorbed in the play that her fingers offered. Carefully he scouted his surroundings with his eyes but there was no one. She might be a family member of a victim. Curiosity took over and he stepped inside the room.

"Waiting for someone?" An attempt for lack of seriousness in his voice caught the girl's attention.

When her dark brown eyes turned towards the source of the 'greeting', they absorbed the image in front of her with tiny traces of astonishment.

"Is something wrong?" Grissom asked when the delay of her answer and the look on her face prompted him to do so.

She opened her mouth and closed it again, wondering for a moment whether to say something else. Quickly she looked down at her fingers. "No… I… I'm waiting for…uh…" she shut her eyes tightly while trying to remember the name. "Sara!" She nodded when the name caught up with her. "But I forgot her last name," the girl admitted.

"Sara Sidle?" he took a guess.

"Yes, yes, that's her. Sara Sidle. Yes," she nodded once more.

"Alright and who might you be?"

"Oh, I'm…" her attempt for an answer was interrupted when Sara came in.

"Evelyn?" she smiled at the girl.

"Yeah." Evelyn stood up, not letting go of the game that her fingers had trouble quitting from.

"Hey, I'm Sara."

"Ok." Evelyn's face did not show boldness. She was a shy girl.

Sara only threw a brief glance at the man next to her and a shape of her lips that could have almost resembled a smile. "Thanks for coming."

"My mum said I could help."

"Help with what?" Grissom asked.

"The Red Letters' case," Sara responded while ignoring his stare.

"How can she help?"

Finally Sara turned her head to face him properly. "She's familiar with the writings," she told him.

His eyes shifted slowly from Sara to Evelyn's faces to finally find their resting place between Sara's brown eyes. "Why didn't you call in an expert?" he asked.

"She is one," Sara pointed at the girl with her arm as she spoke.

The questioning look emerging from his blue eyes took a brief image of the girl's face and her clothing. "Sara, can I talk to you for a minute?" he requested and took her gently by the arm before leading her out of the room.

Standing in front of him, Sara crossed her arms and took a deep breath. She knew a lecture would be rushing her way.

"Do you need my help on the case?"

"No."

"Then why did you call her?"

"Because I think she can help."

"How?" a brow on his face was lifted. "She's a kid."

"She's sixteen, actually," Sara corrected him.

"Well, that helps." He was having trouble accepting Sara's choice. "Sara, we have experts on this."

"Not on this we don't. And Evelyn is one."

He glanced at the small figure in the room and back at Sara. "Where did you find her?"

"At the crime scene." Seeing his bemused expression she simply continued. "Ok, through her mother. You see, Evelyn's mother… stepmother actually, was there with the rest of the curious pack watching while we processed the scene and she mentioned that she had a stepdaughter who was familiar with that."

"A sixteen year-old…" his voice sounded flat.

"Yeah, but…"

"And you agreed to this. Just by having a "chat" with her stepmother?"

"I know it sounds unusual but…"

"It sounds more than just unusual, Sara. It's madness. You bring a teenager to assist in a case like this, and you arrange to have her here without even meeting her…"

"Grissom, please! I know what I'm doing."

Evelyn watched them through the windowed walls but the voices were choked by the thick glass. Their arms rested peacefully alongside their bodies but there was an unmistakably thick cloud of tension that surrounded them and Evelyn was feeling its effects a bit too intensively. She hoped the source of that disagreement wasn't directed towards her; Evelyn disliked being responsible for arguments as she was rarely a witness to such.

After a while the two adults returned to the waiting area. Sara's smile was trying to force out the previous lingering feeling of annoyance, no doubt brought in by her colleague. "Come to my office," she told Evelyn softly.

Stepping forward, Evelyn approached Sara. "Oh and this is Gil Grissom, my former supervisor," she introduced him.

To this Evelyn pulled out a hand that was taken warmly but less heartedly by Grissom.

While holding her hand, he could feel the immense trembling emerging from it. "Are you ok?" he asked cautiously.

"Yeah," she replied without looking at him and quickly withdrew her hand. "I'm just nervous… haven't been to a place like this before."

Sara draped her arm across Evelyn's shoulders while leading her out to the hallway. "He's harmless, Evelyn, no one here will bite," she gave comfort to the teen with a bit of humor, leaving Grissom behind them.

-

When Evelyn sat on the chair in front of Sara's desk, she moved uneasily in the tight space until a spike of comfort rooted her in one place. "Is it my fault that you two started arguing?" she asked quietly, almost with fear.

Sara looked up at her with puzzlement. "Um, no, Evelyn and no, we weren't arguing."

"Ok." Gathering her hands, Evelyn's uneasiness was clearly making odd twitches expose themselves through her extremities.

"Evelyn…" Sara called her.

"Hm?" The girl looked up at her with no clear expectancy in her eyes.

Sara sat down on the chair next to her. "You really can relax, you know that, right?" she told her.

Evelyn nodded almost frantically. "Um." Cautiously, she took a hungry but restrained exploration of Sara's office. "It's weird… this whole place is weird."

"Well, yeah." Sara tilted her head to both sides while giving a lighter tone to her sentences. "It's not exactly the happiest place on the planet, but…"

"No, I…" the girl hesitated for a moment and then continued: "It's like…" she sighed, "How can you work with so much death?"

"The puking buckets stay with you the first couple of days… after that you get used to it."

"I don't mean the scenes… I mean the whole psychology of the thing… how do you keep yourself from going insane after seeing such torture…?"

Sara glanced at her papers and bit her lower lip. "It's hard. You gotta have an iron will and stomach to withstand all those sites. But I guess we have it easier than the profilers… having to be sucked into a killer's mind each time is not my personal favorite," she said.

"That's true. Anyone who's never come in contact with such monstrous expositions of a man's behavior should count themselves very lucky."

A smile plastered itself on Sara's lips. "That's something Gil would say," she spoke warmly.

Evelyn's brown eyes turned slowly towards Sara's. Although a tender age of sixteen, she resembled a much older lady, the maturity more present in her eyes; her russet hair gathered clumsily in a single braid that rested peacefully on her right shoulder gave her a fragile image. "Is he the man I met earlier?"

"Yep."

"He didn't seem too pleased to see me."

"He's alright. He just didn't know you."

"Neither do you, but you are nicer to me."

Sara placed her hand on Evelyn's back and rubbed it gently. "He's a wonderful man…" she told herself.


	2. chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

"You're going to be ok with this?" Sara asked Evelyn while handing the photograph to her. Some people have been known to vomit from such sights, even if they were only displayed on pictures. 

"Mm. I've seen blood before. No big deal."

Evelyn's eyes circled the lines on the victim's leg that were displayed on the photograph before she started drawing her own lines around each of the letters. "Where did you find the body?" her quiet voice echoed in the silent room.

"In a cabin, outside of town… buried in the woods, as to say," Sara replied.

"It figures," she whispered. "This is Kylnear's alphabet," the girl said.

"Excuse me?" Sara circled the table to stand next to Evelyn.

"Kylnear's alphabet. It's a mixture of Cyrillic and Latin scripts."

"That's why I couldn't recognize the majority of the words. I've never seen this… Kylnear alphabet before."

"Not many have. It had a short life… a very short life."

"Did it…"

"Yep. After the alphabet was created, it drew in only about fifty curious followers at the time, but they were caught shortly after and executed along with Kylnear. They were considered 'the devil's followers'."

"Who'd the nerve and patience to do that?"

"Some guy in the north of England in the 14th century called Kylnear, hence, the name of the alphabet, right? He combined these two scripts into one, claming that when learned, it gave a step closer to purification; a language to communicate with God… that sort of thing… by some reason."

"A cult?"

"Maybe."

"So, he made up a language… just like that."

"Yes, he did."

"The combinations of the letters are…"

"Weird? Very, especially with 42 letters in it. You see this word?" she pointed at five-letter word close to the elbow. "The letter 'l' is second here; the word meaning "new". Then, a bit lower… here, we have, what looks like the same word but with the letter at the end and another 'l' from the Cyrillic script… this way, this word means 'view'."

"Ok."

"Yeah. As you know, in Latin scripts, the letter 'p' is a… well, 'p'. But in the Cyrillic ones it's pronounced as 'r'. So, here, depending on the word, sometimes the 'p' is like a 'p' other times like an 'r'. It's pretty screwed up. The grammar is even worse."

"I can imagine. How do you know the pronunciations?"

"There was a book published in the 1920's. Few copies, not many left, that sort of thing… It gave some ideas of how the words were pronounced. After that you do some more researching on history on your own and there you go."

"How do you know all this?" Sara asked curiously.

"Books… research."

"At your age?"

Evelyn looked at her with a knowing expectancy at such remarks. "Teenagers have weird hobbies."

Sara smiled, withdrawing any further questions. "Ok," she quickly diverted her attention to the photograph. "Can you read what it says?"

"Yeah… The grammar though, it's… there are some screw ups but it still readable. They're verses; they look like verses anyway… um… 'In the midway of this…um… our mortal life, I found me… or myself… in a gloomy wood, lost… or astray…"

"The Divine Comedy…" Sara quipped.

"You know it?" Evelyn looked at her.

"Yeah… keep reading."

Skipping a few lines, Evelyn continued: "Which to remember only, my dismay renews, in bitterness not far from death…"

Sara sighed. "This'll be 'fun' to solve."

Grissom's indulgence in the case written on paper was roughly interrupted by a sudden crash of a folder before him. "How familiar are you with The Divine Comedy?" Sara's slightly dry but curious tone spread across the room disturbing the dusty silence.

"Probably more than I should… why?"

"The killer wrote verses… engraved them on the victim's body."

Raising a questioning eyebrow, Grissom opened the folder where the photographs of the victim's body were placed and a white page of the translation printed on it. Without voice, he started reading the written lines.

Sara watched him patiently as his dim blue eyes covered partially by the glasses' frame were traveling slowly over the translation. Such a strange site, he could be reading the sports section in the newspaper but his posture and his attentiveness gave an odd feeling of beauty.

"The first song from Dante's Inferno…" he responded musingly. "How did you recognize this?" he asked, holding the paper in his hand

She smirked at the question. "How can a person not know this crap after some sufficient time spent with you?"

He looked back at the pages without a word, leaving Sara to silently regret the unintentional harshness in her words. "Gil, I…"

"Don't worry," he interrupted her quietly. "I didn't take it like that." But a feeling crept eerily along his spine, whispering that he deserved the dryness of the sentence from Sara. Grissom had to agree. It was an adequate payback for the remark he made on her two days earlier, not much different from this one and fortunately, no other soul was present when these exchanges occurred. "How did you manage to translate it?"

"Evelyn did."

His gaze was lifted to meet hers. "The teenager?"

"Yep."

He kept a temporarily thick pause to retrieve the information. "So, what kind of writing is it?"

"Kylnear's alphabet."

"Never heard of it."

"It's rarely known. It's a combination of Latin and Cyrillic."

"So I gathered. BC?"

"AD, 14th century.

"And you think this is connected to some cult?"

"I don't know. But from the way the scene was staged, I doubt it," she replied and sat on the chair in front of his desk.

Leaning his lips onto his palm, he sighed heavily. "Why would someone go to the trouble of killing a man to carve in letters of alphabet that no one's heard of?"

"Trying to be unique?" she teased.

"He could've tried something else. If he tired to give a message… it didn't really work, did it." Taking the first photograph of the victim's left arm, Grissom placed it over the printed translation. "How does the girl… Evelyn, was it?"

Sara nodded in confirmation.

"How does she know this… alphabet?"

"She found out about it in a friend's book."

"She's not…"

"No. She's pretty normal," Sara smiled.

"What was the alphabet called?"

"Kylnear's alphabet."

"Kylnear's alphabet…" he repeated. "It looks like a dead language, extinct. So, the letters... it makes terrible sense to write such a well-known work as Dante's Inferno with a relatively unknown language."

"I think so, too. Evelyn said it was used to communicate with God."

"But the Comedy isn't about that."

"Yeah." She paused.

"And we don't have experts on this," he said.

"Nope."

"Wonderful." Grissom shook his head. "This means that we are stuck with Evelyn then."

Sara shrugged almost happily. "Appears so."

"Did you do enough research?" he asked for further assurance but Sara's slighted look brushed that request hurriedly aside. Grissom never doubted her thorough research but he did not feel comfortable with knowing that, a teenager, an amateur perhaps, would be assisting. "Do you think she is acquainted with the language enough?"

"She managed to read the verses, didn't she?"

Grissom contemplated for a while before he said: "You're sure there's no one else."

"Positive."

"You seem pretty happy about this," he noticed.

"She's a nice girl…" Sara's voice lowered equivalently with her head.

He pouted. "It… has only been a few days."

"I know but… you should see her, Gil, she's…" a sympathetic sigh escaped her. "She hasn't told me anything about herself but," her gaze rose up to glide on a wide yet intimate distance with her former supervisor's, "there's something absorbingly strange about her."

"Careful, Sara," he warned her with the pen in his hand.

"I'm not going to get too attached to her," she told him. "She's not even a potential victim." Her answer seemed slightly rushed.

"It's still wise caution," he had to add some harshness to his tone. The last time Sara had such sympathy about a female victim, it nearly devastated her. The period that followed was long and at times torturous. He held her hand during that time and he believed that a deeper vulnerability had never resurfaced from her.

"Laney was different," she pointed out. "This whole case is different."

"I trust you, honey but…"

"I know, I know." She held up her hand to interrupt him. "You still can't get that stupid protectiveness about me out of you." A mixed smile met him; the brown in her eyes softened tolerably; gentle air danced across the room while she gathered some breath to continue. "It's been three months, Griss… I thought we agreed to keep away from that area of each other's lives for a while."

He took his seeing glasses off and placed them gently on the papers in front of him. The bareness of his eyes was now examining her silently. The mutual disconnection from each other had been a quiet, settling decision with no major drama or hideous, surplus arguments. "It's easier to be said than actually done."

It is perplexing, what an intimate relationship can do to two people, even after it is finished. It is even more remarkable the connection that remains almost untouched after their departure. You wish to let go of them but subconsciously you're more attached to them than you can actually behold. You believe that it is over but when a moment occurs, especially when the emotional wellbeing of the other half is in some way threatened, you can not escape from it… you need to lend a hand.

"Is that good or bad?"

"You decide."

"Ah, you always leave the tougher decisions to me lately," she mocked.

A quite chuckle was heard from him. "Your new position requires to do that, Sara," he responded and took his glasses to be placed in front of his eyes again, secretly delighted with the ending of this conversation.

* * *

There was a good reason why so many horror movies were placed in cemeteries at night – the creepiness coming from them, the morbid silence, could be overwhelming. Even if a person has never seen such portrayal of these final resting places, they could barely remain unaffected by the atmosphere punctured sharply from the knowledge of decaying corpses and ages-old bones lying around. While threading lightly, her eyes roamed the foggy sheet wrapping loosely around the feebly busy cemetery. It had been a good idea to take a jacket as the heartless cold of the night was fighting to rush through the material and warn her of its presence.

Pulling the yellow tape over her head, Sara soon reached yet another "original" display of the human insanity: a middle-sized statue of a winged angel, praying in a kneeling position above a marble grave. Behind the statue, an old tree with its wide branches that, due to the night, took in more the color of black rather than brown, stretched above the angel, providing perhaps a shelter to it and the deceased. On the largest branch a tight rope was wrapped around it and, as Sara traveled down with her eyes, it held two hands together, the hands belonging to an almost naked, blonde female, hanging behind the statue. The arms and legs had the same carvings as the previous victim and the torso was covered by a bigger velvet sheet, covering her chest and pubic area. Her hanging, lifeless face was covered almost respectively by the messy long hair.

"Another one." Sara looked over at Nick who was opening his field kit.

"Yep," he breathed out and took out another pair of latex gloves.

She began taking photographs of the body while Nick searched for clues of the close area. "With all the time one has, you would think they'd do something better than use people as chalkboards," she said and snapped a photo.

"You said it," Nick replied.

"What's wrong with using good old-fashioned paper? It's cheaper, less hassle, cleaner! Hell, even a computer will do."

"Issues, trauma or boredom?"

Sara sighed and snapped a photo of the victim's feet hanging two inches above the ground. "People are always more original with violence and death rather than something concerning the beauty of life. It's sad."

"It's pathetic."

"Homo homine lupus est, huh, how true is that?" Sara thought out loud.

"If Grissom could hear you now," Nick smiled without removing his eyes from the ground although he had no idea of the meaning of that Latin sentence.

Sara smirked. "I can hear him correcting my Latin right now," she noted and took two more snapshots while hearing a chuckle from her colleague. A sudden bite to the skin made her realize that the thickness of the jacket was not a sufficient one. She shivered slightly and considered the other colleagues back at the lab incredibly lucky for being unable to feel this cold weather.

A few voices near by caught the CSI's attention. Sighing annoyingly, Sara took a firmer grip of her camera. "Not him again," she said.

"Who?" Nick turned towards the three people behind the small barricade of a few police cars. A tall, dark-haired man with shaved head watched the two CSIs. "Herrald Grizwind. Great. The night just got worse." He shook his head and returned to work. Journalists could skin a person just with their repetitive hassling. But Herrald Grizwind was another story; a quieter journalist on the field but one whose stories did not impress the people in the Las Vegas Crime lab much, or at all. "Someone should get a restraining order on that guy." Nick commented. "Ban him from writing altogether, that's even better."

"Couldn't agree more." Sara kneeled down to have a closer look at the ground beneath the victim's feet. Nothing but grass and soil.

* * *

At the lab, Sara tapped her pink marker on the table, while leaning forward. "Strangled like the first victim. Evelyn managed to translate the writings and once again - verses," Sara said and tapped the marker on the photograph of the victim's foreleg. The letters were carved delicately into the skin as to not damage the tissue too much.

"They were 'written' after she was killed."

"Yes. The heart stops pumping blood after death so it's less messy this way… no major squirts."

"You think he might have used a needle for the writings?"

Sara shook her head. "No. The skin was carved with an Exacto knife. Look at the lines… they were done careful and clean, and who ever did it had a lot of patience, I have to say."

"Sounds like the work of a lonely person."

"Very lonely."

"I checked the rope, cloth… there were no prints; even her fingernails were clean."

"Just like the first victim, then."

"Yeah. Both vics must've been struggling while the killer was strangling them so they had to grab onto something but there's just no evidence of it."

"You think he cleaned them?" Sara asked him.

"You mean, before he used them as notepads?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, I do," he replied.

* * *

Evelyn stepped into his office, watching even the particles of air floating around the confided space. Her eyes as wide as they could become with the strings of unknown alertness pulling around them, noticed the shelves with jars and notes, framed butterflies, and different insect species giving the office a sort of "charm", in their own way. There wasn't much light inside but she could still navigate her way through it until she stopped in front of a glass cage, situated next to the wall. "Oh…" she let out a soft sound and gently picked up the furry creature from inside. "Hello, beautiful," she spoke to the tarantula in her hand as if it was truly the most fascinating being in existence. The creature stood still on the girl's palms, watching her with its eyes and rooted caution, its furry bristles moving gently on the skin's surface. "Very pretty." Evelyn's lips curved with an unconscious intention of a smile while her eyes combed the surface of the spider with brushes of curiosity.

"I see you've met Betsy." A familiar voice startled Evelyn when she jumped with little effort as to not alarm the tarantula even further. Her head spun around to find an older man with a blue folder in his hands, standing just beyond the doorway. The image sparked a long current of electricity through the teen, causing her hands to tremble slightly. She took a quickly glimpse of the spider. "I'm sorry… I thought it would be empty," she replied referring to the office. Evelyn placed the spider back in its "home" and hid her hands behind her back, feeling guilty for observing something as close which had probably been off-limits.

"You should be careful with her," he told her. When Evelyn did not say anything to this, he asked: "Is there something you need?" Grissom approached his desk, settling the folder down and fixing his gaze on Evelyn.

"No, I heard that you kept a tarantula here and I wanted to see her. Sara said it was ok…" she nearly whispered the last sentence from burning shyness and nervousness. A rough lump was formed from the excessive amounts of saliva generating on the insides of her mouth. Evelyn pushed down with a hard swallowing until the lump finally continued on its course through her body while dissolving.

"Sara told you that?" he pretended quietly to be amazed at that thought.

Evelyn nodded.

A line stretched his lips further to the right as he looked over at Betsy. "Do you like spiders?" he asked and stopped next to the glass cage. The tone of his voice felt smoother than the previous time and that eased her nervousness enough to answer.

"Yes. My dad had two fasciata spiders."

Grissom smirked. "Brave man," he said. "Which specie do you think Betsy is?" he asked giving a glance towards the spider.

"Um," Evelyn studied the colors and overall shape of the creature. "Avicularia urticans?" she gave a guess.

The line on his lips extended further into soft smile. "Very good," he responded.

Evelyn failed to smile back but only breathed out silently in relief.

"Most people can't bother with the Latin names," he said.

"They're easier for me to remember." Her eyes traveled upwards at the wall before stopping on a framed butterfly specimen. "Oh," she sounded. The black wings that were sprinkled with white and the deep red seeping into the part closer to the body caught her attention. "Is that the Kamehameha butterfly?" she asked with hints of excitement in the otherwise fragile voice.

"You have an interest in butterflies as well?" he asked her. The teen's enthusiasm appeared innocently sweet.

"In a way. I saw it in my father's book once but I've never seen one in person," she gazed up at the framed insect before throwing a glimpse at Grissom with a silent request to have a closer view.

"Not today, Evelyn. Sorry," he told her.

The shine in her eyes faded quickly as they lowered themselves away. "That's fine. Such pretty colors though."

"Nature herself is beautiful." Grissom turned around to take a seat behind his desk.

"Another pet?" she asked when noticing a small picture of another tarantula specie on one of the shelves.

"That would be Ralph. He was my former roommate here," he said without looking up. He knew which photograph she was referring to.

"I haven't seen that kind before," she admitted.

"It's an African Red Baboon Tarantula."

"Pretty," she said and turned her face towards Grissom. Evelyn watched him beginning to type something on his laptop. She took a deeper breath and although still hesitant, she asked: "Mr. Grissom?"

"Yes?" he did not look away from the screen.

"Do you have children?"

The question diverted the man's eyes towards her, provoking the awkwardness of the words. "No, I don't."

"That's a shame," she was brave enough to comment.

"Why?" he tilted his head.

"Something like this," she nodded towards the tarantula, "would be nice to teach to your children," Evelyn told him and hurried over to the entrance. "I'm sorry that I came in like that to your office," she excused herself and exited Grissom's workplace.

He watched the empty doorway, the teen's words ringing silently inside his ears. What was puzzling to him was the amount of fear present in Evelyn while she talked, as if living with that feeling that one wrong word would mean a death sentence for her. Grissom did, however, appreciate the enthusiasm, although brief, which Evelyn showed about the insects. Slowly, his face was brought in front of the glowing screen once more as the thoughts discolored and were replaced with his current case.

* * *

"Hey, mum," Evelyn called her stepmother as she entered the house.

"Hey, sweetie, how was your day?" The woman, close to the age of forty greeted her with a smile.

"It was ok," Evelyn's voice was barely heard as the sound was choked ruthlessly by something present in front of her eyes.

"Evelyn…" Grace approached her stepdaughter and lowered her head enough to take in the sad face of the girl. "Oh, sweetie, what's wrong?" she asked with rising concern.

Evelyn looked up at her with salty water covering her eyes, nearly blinding her. "He looked so much like him, mum," the stability of her voice subdued easily to the shakiness of memories. "His voice… he," she tried to take in some air to continue, "He even had a tarantula. He was so much like him." Her last word opened the final door that let in the river of tears to slide hurriedly down on the soft surface of her cheeks.

Grace's eyebrows furrowed as she opened her arms, embracing Evelyn. She understood her stepdaughter's pain and it was disturbing knowing the trauma which this young girl had gone through… it could easily last her a lifetime and that knowledge weighed roughly on Grace's heart. "How much?" she whispered.

"Too much," Evelyn replied with a loud sob.

* * *

Author's Note: Thank you to Psyched, Alison, Raff, Shannonsto, Michstjame, Gibby83 for needed information. 


	3. chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

The next evening, Sara was sitting quietly in her chair, sipping her first coffee and reading the book seated on her lap. A novel called "Forgotten Shadows" had reached her ears with good recommendations and she decided to give it a try, and so far the story written on those pages had lived up to her expectations. It had been about a young woman returning to Italy to claim an inheritance left by her uncle when some dark mysteries about her family begin to resurface; during the stay she meets a man much older than her but one that may or may not be her kindred spirit.

Sara smiled at this. The woman, Kenya, appeared as a curious, ambitious person and the older man Paolo, well… surprisingly enough, he resembled Grissom. These passions drew Sara even deeper into the story as she read patiently to see where Kenya and Paolo would end up. Although the story itself had been specified as pure fiction by the author, the characters inside them had been based on real people. "Someone I've met?" Sara made a joke to herself. The author had not been older than twenty four but the book had been very well written.

Sara had the door of her office closed as to have a few moments to herself before diving into work again. The voices of workers and telephone rings were faintly heard behind the material of the door and walls as she ran through the written words. Then the door opened suddenly but slowly as if not to alarm her. The events on the pages managed to have her eyes almost glued to them but the shadow of the person that entered painted a soft smile on the woman's lips. "I'm on page 174," Sara said.

"Should I be impressed?" Grissom closed the door behind him and saw Sara literally peeling out her eyes from the book to look up at him and smile with them.

"I started it a week ago," she teased.

"And you've read how many pages per day?"

"Only two lines."

"Very progressive," his eyebrow rose up.

"I try." Her eyes dropped down temporarily onto the book before she placed the bookmark between the pages and closed them.

"How's the case?"

"Oh… more verses," she said and took the piece of paper before handing it over to him.

Grissom studied it subtly for few brief seconds and snorted. "This is an excellent translation," he said and then read:

"The light bark of my genius lifts the sail,

Well pleased to leave so cruel sea behind;

And of that second region will I sing,

In which the human spirit from sinful blot

Is purged, and for ascent to Heaven prepares."

She left the chair with enough distance to take a peak at the paper. "Oh, that's not the translation, it's the…"

"Original one, I've noticed," he nodded towards her.

"As you can see, Evelyn has proven herself as an expert with the language."

His lips pressed together to stretch forward as he read the rest of the verses with little attention. "Why would an eighteen year-old spend time learning a complex language like this?"

Sara shrugged as she finally stood up. "I wish I could say we talked enough to tell you that."

"It's not to say I'm unimpressed, Sara." Grissom wanted to halt her lack of trust for his approval of the teen's involvement. "The grammar, the unusual combinations of the letters in words… it does take an intelligent person to comprehend all this."

An astonished face stared at him. "Wow," she began with little excitement. "Are you actually saying something good about her?"

"What's so strange about it?" The masking of his emotions failed miserably. "Anyway, it's good that she can help," he finished.

She observed him while he placed the sheet of paper on her desk. "Your office wasn't empty yesterday," she guessed with a small stretch on her lips.

"You told her that it had been alright to sniff around my personal work space like that?"

"Yeah. She was just curious about Betsy," Sara explained.

"Without my approval." However harsh it might have appeared, his tone was still lighter.

She lifted her hands. "I know you're picky about that, but she promised me she would not touch anything."

"Excluding the tarantula you mean?"

"Fine, excluding her. Did Evelyn break anything?"

"No, I think I arrived just in time."

A brighter smile finally crept up on Grissom from Sara as she took a final sip from the remaining coffee and circled her desk to stand in front of him. "She's not really a kid, you know."

"Yes, eighteen, I forgot," he said scornfully.

Sara hit him gently with her hand. "Work's calling."

"Right behind you," Grissom followed her through the door.

-

"I found something." Nick greeted Sara with one of his charming grin.

"What?" she asked.

"A string of hair on the second vic's scalp."

"Someone else's?"

"Yes. I noticed it when I gave David a second visit."

"Nice. Let me see," she requested and replaced Nick's position in front of the microscope; enhancing the image of the hair from the root to the end of the shaft. "Black," she said observing the coloring of the cuticle. "Human… with traces of… hair-gel?" Lifting her head from the eyepiece, Sara took an empty spot on the wall as her brief point of focus.

"At least we know our killer liked keeping his hair in place," Nick shrugged.

"Did you check the source?"

"Not yet but I thought this was a good piece of information to share."

"Sure is," Sara said and soon left Nick to continue with his part of the evidence processing.

On her way out, Sara bumped into Greg. "Well, hello," she greeted him cheerfully.

"Hi, Sara," his own greeting seemed rushed.

"So how was your lunch with Wendy?"

Nodding to the side, Greg shrugged. "It was fine but not as great as I had hoped."

Sara smiled briefly. "You flirted with her?"

"I tried," he sounded disappointment.

"She didn't tell you?"

"What would that be?"

"She's not attracted to guys, Greg."

The younger man turned his head puzzlingly to the side and faced his colleague again. "She's gay… Great."

Sara showed her confirmation with a nod.

"How did I miss that?"

"Yeah, I wondered the same knowing your experience with women," she taunted him.

"Don't mock me, woman!" he warned her lightly and hurried to make himself invisible from her view.

Watching him leave, Sara's amusement was silently interrupted by the gentle vibrations coming from her cell phone.

"Sidle."

"Hello, Sara. It's Grace."

"Oh, hello, Mrs. Presnowitz."

"Forgive me if I'm interrupting you."

"No, not at all. How's Evelyn?"

"She's asleep. She's had a long day. One of her friends is leaving for Peru in a few hours and it was a little tough for her."

"I see."

"I called because I wanted to ask you a favor," the woman's voice was low.

"Sure."

"My sister's ill and I need to go see her. Can Evelyn stay with you for one night?"

Sara's head jerked back in astonishment to the woman's request. "Why?" she did not mean to sound rude, the light question only came out of the absent understanding of a plea for a girl that was old enough to remain on her own for a while.

"I know it seems odd, but I would feel better if she was staying with an adult, someone she trusts…"

"Mrs. Presnowitz, um… as you know, I work nights so Evelyn would be left alone during that time, I don't know how-…"

"She needs looking after, Sara… please. And as she's still assisting with your investigation, you can go over your clues… or what ever it is that you CSIs do, I'm sorry I'm not familiar with how you work," Grace said honestly.

Sara hurried to the other room for more privacy before answering. "Can I ask why she can't be alone? I mean, she is old enough to take care of herself…"

Grace sighed weakly to this. "She's been through a lot of hard times, Sara…she…" there was a thick pause as hesitation was sensed in the woman's thoughts. "She sometimes has these moments where she…" another thick pause appeared as she hesitated longer whether to continue with her original thought. "She's a strong person but she needs someone."

Sara closed her eyes to avoid looking at any depressing point in the room. "Don't you have anyone else?" It hadn't been that she felt heartless and wanted to refuse the plea but puzzled instead.

"No. She doesn't have any relatives here and I… I think she trusts you," Grace said.

Sara bit her lip while her left hand gripped the edge of her pocket softly. "One night?"

"Just one."

"Alright." Sara gave in with a long exhalation.

The sudden removal of a heavy burden was sensed in the older woman's voice. "Oh, thank you. I won't have to worry so much. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Mrs. Presnowitz. Have a good night."

"You too, Sara. Thank you."

Sara disconnected the call and dropped her arm to her side. "She's eighteen. Why stay with me?" She bopped her head once and turned around to exit the lonely room.

-

"You think something might have happened to her?" Tracy 's eyes searched desperately for answers from the two men sitting in front of her.

Nick looked down at his file and hesitantly pulled out a print. "We found a body of a young woman, matching the description from your missing person's report. It may be your friend," he said and gave the photograph taken of the victim's head in the morgue.

Taking it, Tracy 's entire body shook nervously as a flow of tearful emotions exposed itself as a result of the image. "Oh my god," her voice quickly became rickety as she fought for hurried words. "It's Keisha… it's her. Oh my god," the last piece of voice was temporarily squeezed out of her as the tears appeared to choke everything.

"You said she'd been missing for six days?" Detective Donna Carolson asked the young woman who was no older than 25.

Tracy nodded while pressing her hand against her mouth trying to suppress the painful moans. "What happened to her?"

"She's been strangled," Nick responded.

Tracy 's gaze rose up to his. "By whom? Why?" The cries were not easy to suppress any longer and she easily gave up trying.

"We don't know. Did she come across anyone that you think might've wanted to harm her?" Carolson asked.

Tracy shook her head and shut her eyes while the tears streamed down on her face. "There was this guy that used to come around a lot. I think he was obsessed with Keish or something but…" she took a moment to relieve herself of more pressure from the shock. "Oh god…" she dropped the photograph and covered her face.

"What was his name?" Carolson asked her.

"Henry… Livano," she replied and continued crying. "She was my best friend, why would anyone want to kill her?"

"We'll find him Tracy … I promise," Nick tapped the young woman's shoulder sympathetically despite knowing that gesture could do nothing to ease Tracy 's grief.

-

Grissom sat down on the empty couch with the first rays of burning sunlight touching his silvery hair. The natural warmth and its intensity was a welcoming joy to the primal layers of his skin as the hungry mouths of its sensors opened widely to swallow the rays and transmit their tender effect through the rest of his body. As the shallow caress to his body commenced, Grissom closed his eyes to enjoy the moment and let the invisible fingertips of the sun relax every tensed muscle.

Working so frequently in the night and the righteously called "graveyard shift", being a friend to the darkness more often than the day could sometimes react on one's mind; the human being is a daytime creature, not a nocturnal one and their job, those shifts they must go through only push them further away from what has been primary indented for them by nature. The insufficient amount of natural light can harm the body, bringing on signs of depression and that was one of the many effects that Grissom knew about well. Because of that reason and so many others he savored the rays of the greatest source of energy for this planet so sweetly when a solitary moment could assure that for him.

He opened his eyes and let them be guided by one of the yellow paths that ended in the far right corner of the couch. His fingers touched together as the morning softness of the moment slowly painted on a layer of a memory not long before. His left hand traveled away from his stomach to touch the surface of her arm's smooth skin. The fingers lingered no longer than two seconds on every inch beneath them as they traveled up and down repeatedly. When their route was complete, they went further up to the tip of her chin. She would smile when he would touch her face. The sun had revealed the glow of her youthful face even more gracefully than the dark mysterious veil of the night whose intention was to bring more excitement to the lack of revelation. Grissom preferred the romantic intentions of the sun instead. In some relationships it's the mystery that keeps them excited and keeps them further away from the dreaded waterfall that could distinguish the fire that keeps the two people together, alive. Here… it was different; every revelation was a spark ready to ignite the growing appreciation in the partner's eyes for their beloved other half; every exposure of a certain part, whether that would be an unknown origin on their body or a deep area of their insides, brought a greater feeling of need and wanting for that person.

Grissom felt like a nervous rookie on the first day of his job as he slowly dived into the first warm waters of their feelings, the indications of what the human beings kept inside them, different from the physical clues, far different from any theories that could be touched by the mind of science. Oh, yes, he was nervous. Grissom was not on the secure emotionless pedestal which he had gotten used to being on so many years, even decades before… the time had been too long. He could not experiment with a safe scientific observation any longer. Everything rational from the mind had taken its day off. It had been the heart's turn to say a few words and guide this newborn through the unexplored world of emotion and feeling before him. The steps were slow but steady; the patience was there from both sides although the constant fear in the beginning that all this could snap and shatter everything was present inside him. But fortunately the bond held and the cotton warmth encouraged him to step forward and let himself be embraced by the revelation of feelings.

Like a child, he took in everything which he saw and felt with innocent eyes and curiosity in his mind. His heart smiled at the obedience he showed and the absorption of every touch, every word, and every emotion as a pure, uncontaminated sensation with an irreversible rarity.

And now she smiled at him with her eyes twinkling on the morning painted with the sunshine kindness. Her smile was also a rarity, something you want to preserve so it could never die out, it could never disappear. It meant that she was happy, a feeling of contentment floating around her. What a beautiful piece of knowledge that was to him, knowing that she was happy because of him; that every worry could be chucked through the window for a while and leave no trace behind it for even the tiniest disturbance. He did not know why however, could never figure out why, that made an equal or perhaps greater feeling of satisfaction to descend gently inside him.

Then, a shadowy sigh escaped him, wrapped in tiring regret. Her presence here, on this couch, next to him, belonged to the past now. Reality was everything to him but now he silently hated it for reminding him of the crudeness and the passed moments.

Giving himself some leverage with his hands on the furniture, Grissom stood up and dragged himself to the bathroom for a hot shower. Anything that could distract him from those thoughts would do.


	4. chapter 4

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

Note: Some language may not be suitable for younger readers. Also, as you've noticed, this is less of a casefile story and more about the characters' relationships, but I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

The tall man with black curly hair slumped on the steel chair in the interrogation room. There was annoyance on his face with warning signs of its possible escalation into violence. "That guy? No, never heard of him."

"Alright. We were told that you've been visiting Keisha quite frequently and some of those visits weren't all that pleasant." Detective Carolson kept a calm tone during the interrogation while sitting on the other side of the table.

"So, we argued. Lots of couples do that," he shrugged nervously.

"But you had broken up three months before that."

"It's not easy to stop loving someone."

"Did you ever hit your ex?"

"No," he responded shortly while his leg barely took a moment to rest on one spot. "I maybe have trouble letting go of her but I wouldn't harm her like that," he said.

The detective nodded and glanced down at the piece of paper in front of her. "And you last saw her a week ago…"

"Yes," he exhaled annoyingly. "Look, I've been here for an hour now. I think that's long enough."

"One more question Mr. Livano. Have you heard of "The Divine Comedy?"

"Should I?"

"Answer the question, please."

"Yeah. Dante Alighieri, right?" His arms folded and he leaned back with a sudden but small decrease of the earlier agitation.

"How well?"

"Less than before. But I know it 'cause of this teacher we had in high school… She was obsessed with it and I ended up hating that shit."

"What was the reason?"

"She was always mentioning parts of it… whenever she could get the chance for it. It got on my nerves."

"Alright, Mr. Livano, you're free to go for now but stay in Vegas," the detective warned him before taking the sheets of paper in her hands.

He sighed. "Yes, ma'am." Henry stood up and gave a salute with his hand. "I'll try not to kill any more of my ex-girlfriends," he shook his head.

Donna Carolson turned around to look through the one-sided window before following the suspect and his lawyer outside. On the other side of the mirror were Sara and Nick.

"What do you think?" Nick asked her.

"I'm not sure… It's possible, but he doesn't appear as a very patient man."

"How does that play in the case?"

Sara turned her head to her colleague in bewilderment. "Patience is important, Nick. Remember when we talked about the carvings, how they were done? That who ever did this had to have had patience. You need to do the carving slowly so it won't do too much damage to the skin, not rush it," she told him.

Nick looked away with the pesky color of embarrassment painting itself on his face. "Of course," he said.

* * *

"Alright, two pizzas - Vegetarian and with everything." Sara placed the two flat boxes on the table in her living room.

"Thanks, I was pretty hungry," Evelyn confessed and lifted the top from the second box. Hot, aroma-rich steam rose up from the meal, eagerly escaping the confinement of the recycled material.

"Are you full?" Sara asked her, once the boxes and plates were left empty.

Evelyn nodded and tapped her left hand with her right one before returning her gaze towards the destination of Sara's eyes. "This was a silly idea," she said, her face displaying little satisfaction.

"What was?"

"Me staying here. My mum worries far too much…"

"You must have given her a pretty good reason for that," Sara said as she sat down carefully on the couch next to her.

Evelyn shrugged and turned her face away to find an invisible speck to stare at and distance her browns from the person next to her. "I've been through some screwed up times but it's not like I need a babysitter."

"Then why are you here?" Sara leaned to her right while her head found a comfortable place on her right palm.

Evelyn glanced at Sara and returned her attention to the speck. "She'll worry more if I don't… she must trust you though."

"Maybe. Funny though, she said the same thing about you."

Her thin lips released a sigh as she touched her wrist gently. "So she found me with a razor that one time in the bathroom, but I wasn't going to hurt myself… and… she got even more worried after that. I love my mum but, I'm not the suicidal type… I've already seen death…. I don't want to go there that soon in my life." Evelyn shook her head and brought her fingers closer to her lips. "I just avoid getting close to people because of it."

"Dying?"

"Yes… they all leave… I only have my mum now and two friends of which one left yesterday… the others…"

"Yes?" Sara asked softly sensing the tension in her guest's posture.

"They die," Evelyn whispered.

There was a long pause as Sara suffered a loss of correct words to continue the conversation.

"My dad, when I was twelve… car accident, or that's what I heard happened." Evelyn saved Sara the trouble. "My mum told me. She was more scared than me… she always panics so easily. We went to the hospital. He was there… dying. The doctors said he would be alright but I knew he was dying." Her voice seemed lost, distant from everything except the agony of that time wrapped tightly around each breath and word. "It's strange how many kids take their parents for granted, like they're always going to be there. But they don't realize that it's not so simple… they die. Sooner or later they die… It took me a while to accept it as reality; even though I watched him die on that bed; it seemed surreal… and hideous. Everything crashed after that." Her small fingers rolled her sleeve up an inch before they touched the soft skin on her arm, burying the long nails in it; not enough for the skin to bleed but enough for the nails to leave deep imprints.

Acknowledging this sight caused disturbance to strike Sara. She wanted to remove the girl's hand but Evelyn did it instead, withdrawing it as if her fingers had touched fire.

"Tony…" she paused while the oily thickness smudged her words giving them less clarity than required for their understanding. "We were almost best friends… then this stupid bitch left him and humiliated him so much that he got into this huge depression and took his dad's gun…" she spoke the words calmly without any tremors or any other announcement of tears; she must have repeated this many times in some form. "Got in his room. I tried to talk him out of it but he pushed me outside…" her eyes kept looking at the speck, ignoring Sara's presence as if in a brief trance. "The door was locked. I screamed at him to open it and then I heard a shot… Everything was quiet afterwards. So quiet. I was fourteen… a kid." and inhaled deeply. "So quiet…"

The story shook Sara's body uneasily as a faint memory occurred in her own mind entwining its storyline with that of this girl, but when she leaned forward and attempted to speak out, Evelyn continued.

"Then… Laney… I got a call from her mum… They found her in an alley, raped, beaten and just left there." She shrugged and rubbed her arms as the sudden chills from passed but yet raw memories embraced her again.

"Laney Krostoles?" Sara wondered to herself and then asked: "Gang rape?"

Evelyn nodded. "Ten people, ten fucking monsters did that to her and they only caught three!" she hissed calmly.

"We couldn't find more evidence…" Sara suddenly mumbled which brought Evelyn's attention back on her. "I was on her case." She had to confess. "I actually met Laney before. She was a nice girl." She swallowed uneasily when the lump felt more like a spiky rock scratching her throat, refusing to fall through. She couldn't forget the hard time she gave herself because of that case and the hard time she gave Grissom; his serenity surpassed her expectations.

The look in Evelyn's eyes was one with hurt, wrapped around a quiet feeling of astonishment but little blame. "Why didn't you do more?" she asked with no change in her voice.

"We tried… I tried… we couldn't find more," Sara replied with enormous guilt in her response.

The answer did not appear sufficient for the teen. "Do you know what everyone went through when they found her? Did you know that she was a virgin before?" the anger suddenly showed in Evelyn's, now, clear accusations.

"I can imagine what you went through."

"No, you can't." Evelyn's eyebrows almost merged together. "You didn't know her well, you didn't feel the pain of everyone else, and you didn't go through those shitty nights where you kept blaming yourself for everything!"

Evelyn's screams penetrated Sara's chest but she fought hard to prevent that picture from exposing itself in front of the girl. "Yes I did," Sara told her and swallowed again to push the irritating lump down. "I had to go through the scenario of her murder over and over without showing the slightest empathy. It wasn't easy."

"She was only sixteen, Sara…"

"I'm…"

"Shut up," she whispered, fighting to subdue the sudden, fully unreleased burst of anger. "I've heard that 'I'm sorry' crap from too many people. Why does everyone keep saying that? Do they think it'll make things better for me? Are they the ones that killed her? No. Then stop saying that."

Long silence soaked the room once again, giving the occupants a quiet chance to recover from the depth of the words echoed in the room that threatened to drown them. Sara should have anticipated a heavy conversation to emerge but the uneasy surprise which threw back images of an almost personal case at her was strange. What could she tell Evelyn? The lines on the girl's face were aging her faster than the natural course of time; they were deep as if cut through with a knife; only blood was missing from those lines. The eyes had a bright layer across them but it did nothing to show a mask of a girl untroubled by the harsh and undeserved reality of life's complications. The silence was long. Sara did not want to fuel neither Evelyn's nor her own anger but the words from the teen's mouth stung her. There was truth to them – Sara felt convinced of that.

"I had a close friend who was raped and murdered," Sara then said with impossible attempts to hide the pain inside the words. "It wasn't a gang rape but we were close. It hurt… so, I know how it's like to lose someone like that."

"Did you find the killer?" Evelyn asked with caution as Sara's second confession came unexpectedly.

"Yeah. But even when the bastard's caught, it brings only slight relief. The more painful realization that the person you cared about is gone forever is there and it's incurable…"

"That's true." Evelyn looked in front of her and brought her knees closer to her chest. "People take everything for granted which is stupid. Everyone waits for a tragedy to happen and then they start to maybe appreciate something which is once again – stupid. They shouldn't wait for that bullshit, they should just be thankful for what they have and take care of that." She paused. "I think that's what my dad realized about my mum. If he hadn't asked her out that evening, they wouldn't be married now and I wouldn't have a mother… She worries too much but I love her. I love my mum," she said and curled even deeper into the softness of the couch.

Sara smiled softly and brushed her hand against Evelyn's hair. "You're holding up pretty good," she told her.

"I've heard that before," the teen buried her nose in the small space between her hands and knees. "My life should be a living hell by now. But when I see those closest to me go away like that," she sighed, "call me a coward but I don't wanna do the same, I don't wanna destroy my life. My dad wouldn't have liked that… he was such an enthusiast with everything and he loved life. He wasn't the most outgoing person and almost everyone thought of him as a man incapable of a proper social life, but he was a great man. He loved his work, his hobbies, but he always had time for me and mum… he came the closest to understanding me." The last sentence was a regretful whisper. Her face soon disappeared in the dark space behind her hands. "I miss him," she whispered sadly.

Sara could feel where this would lead. Gathering Evelyn in her arms, she cradled the young girl closer to her. "He wanted me to go to University, did you know that?" She heard Evelyn speak through the choking cloak of the saddened moment when the girl pulled away from Sara. "He wanted me to be someone, but he never put pressure on it… it's 'cause of him that I'm still at school and it's 'cause of him that I'll be going to University in the future."

"What are you gonna be studying?"

"Biology."

"Interesting choice."

Evelyn barely moved her arms away from her chest when she said: "I'm pretty tired. I'm gonna go to sleep if it's ok."

"Sure. I'll get the covers," Sara said and quickly stood up, hurrying towards the bedroom, not wanting to cause an uncomfortable atmosphere.

While holding the required sheets and pillow tightly in her embrace, Sara stopped in front of the closet. Her shoulders fell slightly as she stared at the material of which the door was made. The contents did not interest her; her mind was somewhere else after Evelyn's revelation pulled out certain moments in time that Sara had wished to forget or at least not to be reminded often… no, to forget. "Griss?" she whispered hopelessly to the dead object as if it could hear her call. The grip tightened around the sleeping material when she swallowed once more and turned around to exit the room.

When the couch was made into a small bed, Evelyn covered herself with the duvet and turned off the light. Once she was left alone in the living room, Evelyn stared into the darkness without a destination point as her eyes twinkled quietly with the late glow of the full moon. The sparkles grew larger as the quiet pressure from her previous revelations introduced another row of thick colorless liquid to place a watery layer over her eyes. She could hear the sound of moving cars and some loud shouting but her brain paid no attention to such distractions.

Lifting her head from her pillow, Evelyn glanced over at the rucksack that was leaning lazily against the lower part of the kitchen counter. Removing the duvet, she stood up and quietly walked over to the navy blue rucksack. Kneeling down, she opened it and took out a small notebook. Inside the notebook was a photograph of an older man with glasses and hair which color reminded of ashes, holding a little girl in his arms. Brushing his image with her thumb, Evelyn sighed and tilted the photograph to the right for the moonlight to shine fully on it and reveal the people in it even more clearly, giving a silvery glow to them. "Goodnight, daddy," she said and quickly hid the picture in the notebook.

* * *

Grissom opened the door to the locker-room and was taken slightly aback when he noticed Sara leaning back against her own locker with an exhausted expression. That did not mean good; he'd seen that face too many times before. "Sara?" he called her softly and cautiously from the door.

The brown-eyed woman did not distance her head from the locker door and instead closed her eyes. She did not wish to meet his eyes just yet but the softness of his call was the first sweet awakening for her this evening. "She knew Laney," Sara said.

"Who? Evelyn?"

Sara nodded.

Grissom remained in his place and moved the two books from his left to his right hand. He couldn't forget the long hours Sara had gone through for that case. The woman always worked overtime but that case nearly exhausted her. It would have been perhaps easier if she hadn't known the victim prior to her murder but she did and it was revealed only after the closure of the case. He understood why she did not tell him until the end but regardless of everything, Sara did her job without letting the empathy reach cataclysmic proportions. She beat herself up repeatedly for not succeeding in finding sufficient evidence to link the other seven members to the crime. He could only imagine the heavy burden of a sleepless day which those memories brought back to her.

It wouldn't be appropriate if he did this in a full room but they were alone here. No one else was present, it would be alright. Quietly he walked over to her with steps barely heard and stopped when his body was facing hers. Her head had dismissed the metal surface behind her and instead brought itself forward and hang down to the mercy of gravity. Her chest rose up slowly but deeply as a good amount of recycled air entered inside her; the carbon dioxide soon exiting through her nose was mixed with the weight of some unfamiliar guilt. Grissom couldn't see her eyes but he imagined the dark color on them due to her mood.

"She blamed me for not doing enough… she was right."

"You did everything with the evidence you had," he told her.

"Did I?" Her eyebrows rose up but her head did not.

"You know you did even though you keep saying the opposite."

"I know you said that sometimes science isn't enough but…" her left hand formed a fist and a loud bang was heard next to her hip.

"Sara…"

"It brought barely any relief to the family." She pushed herself away from the locker. "Yes, there was evidence that only those three beat her up like that and killed her physically but… ten men… how can ten men rape her? How can…" her breathing tried to relax but her pulse wasn't getting anywhere near that tempo.

"Don't go back there, Sara, don't," he told her coldly but the iciness quickly melted away by the agony in the eyes which rose up to meet his.

"She was right, I could've done more," she said.

"If you had more evidence yes, but…."

"Seven of them are still out there, how could… argh!" Her fingers stiffened into cold fists.

"Six," he corrected her.

"What?"

"One of the men was found dead. Drug overdose."

Her eyes moved to each of the blues staring back at her as she was trying to bring out a calmer answer. "Huge agony I hope," she said with a distant tone and closed her eyes again when Grissom's gaze silently asked her to lower the hurtful barriers inside her. "I wish we could've done more…."

"We're scientists, not magicians. We do the best with what we have."

"That's true I guess but…"

"Sara, every time you get angry, you poison your own system."

Sara's eyes shut tightly for a moment. "Kylnear Montapert," she responded. "I know, Griss, I know… it keeps getting to me. I know it's not healthy but it happens!"

His left hand found itself on the soft blue sleeve; the cotton felt warm, despite its thickness, beneath his fingertips as he gave a gentle squeeze to her arm. "Please don't do this to yourself again. You have a new case. You need to concentrate on that. Regrets are never useful and especially for things you can not change."

"Who says I'm regretting?" she looked up at him.

Grissom's lips stretched into a knowing smile which only served as a reminder that she could not hide emotions and facts from him as she used to anymore.

"Fine. I just feel more responsible towards Evelyn."

"You shouldn't."

"I can't help it," she said and moved to avoid him but his grip remained on her arm.

"You've got to. You're working with her now and it won't help the investigation at all if you keep returning to the Krostoles case," he told her seriously.

Her gaze had no welcoming signs to decorate it and her voice fought to bring out a solid tone but it seemed hard before this man. "I know how it's like to be close to a rape and murder victim," she told him.

"It's not your responsibility anymore."

"I was on the case!"

"Yes, but not anymore."

"Maybe I ca-…"

"Stop, Sara. You did all you could. We got the ones that murdered her. Evelyn is not a victim. You do not owe her what you think you owed her family. Don't open up old wounds again. It's over. Do you understand that?"

Sara kept quiet and pressed her lips, pushing back any harsh words. Grissom always meant well, it was only a shame that she couldn't agree with him all the time. However, she had to give in now. He was right, as usual. "Yeah," she admitted and after a few moments felt the slow release of her arm. Sara did not know whether it was a good thing or not that Grissom usually had an unearthly, soothing effect on her. Maybe it was his tone, the way he talked, the way he'd look at her or simply his appearance… whatever it was, it always worked and this time it was no exception. Her eyes softened without her wanting; her muscles eased and her tone took a gentler turn. Her body whispered for an embrace and her eyes followed the request but neither of them moved. The moment did not appear appropriate. There was a need, not just a physical one, but they didn't have the strength to obey it enough…. Then, her pager beeped. "Damn," she whispered and took a glimpse of the message. A sigh followed and she looked up at him again. "I better go," she said and took a step away from him but not before her fingers touched his, finding their way between each other and forming a small but solid net. "Thanks," she told him with a heartwarming sincerity.

His blue eyes, darker in the fading light of the room, welcomed her gratitude silently but happily. The only response he could give was a nod. His fingers seeped the warmth from Sara's touch and that only served as a sweet reminder of what had never left from the past; the warm sparks penetrated his skin and found themselves riding the stream of his blood flow. He did not want to let go. The intimacy of the touch was a sensation he hadn't felt in a while, a memory that served as a form of mind-healing many, many times for him. He should let go if only his hand would obey his mind instead of the quiet orders from his heart. This was not appropriate. It shouldn't happen. This was completely unnecessary.

The net did not break, if anything, it only tightened.

"Please let go," she pleaded inside her. She should release her hand. Why wasn't she doing that? Probably due to that warmth. There was that smoothness, that cursed smoothness that always tricked her into keeping her hands pressed against his longer than intended. The warmth was welcoming to the skin of her hand. The moment was chasing away the light that was revealing everything else in the room except the man next to her. The simple and yet powerful intimacy of the touch grew further. The awareness of her surroundings was fading and yet her heart kept its normal pace… it did not complain.

"Something is wrong," she then spoke with surprisingly difficult strength.

"I know," he responded and blinked softly.

This should end. The moment should break… but that seemed difficult for now. Then, once more a beeping sound cracked the entire darkness around them, shattering the thick glass of intimacy. The net was broken as Sara took the pager and read the same message. Another exchange of looks occurred before she rushed through the door, leaving Grissom alone. Any further words would only keep them longer here and they had other things to do right now.

Grissom closed his hand for his fingers to touch the rest of his palm with the sentimental presence of affection. His gaze stood at the doorframe a while longer, unable to erase the image of only a moment ago. The call of reality knocked on his door however, and he soon diverted his attention to the books in his hands. He should return to work as well.


	5. chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

"The results came." Nick walked in her office with a disappointed look. 

"Not Livano's?" Sara guessed.

"Nope."

"Great," she sighed and took the document, observing it carefully. "Doesn't mean he's not a suspect anymore, though."

"Yeah." He paused. "Did you sleep ok?" Nick then asked her.

The question received little welcome as she turned around. "Um, why?" she stretched out a smile.

"'Cause you look tired," he said.

"And that's surprising?"

"Lately, yeah."

"I like to work," she replied simply.

"Just don't kill yourself in the process, Sara," Nick said.

"I know my limits, don't worry." She raised her hands while her eyes circled the room absently.

"Who says I'm worrying?" His shocked expression was a miserable attempt at faking.

Sara rolled her eyes and turned around trying to subdue some growing irritation towards his 'humor' for now. A conversation of that category would have to wait another day.

* * *

Evelyn placed her rucksack down on the floor and walked over to her desk. A small red book with yellow pages, placed on the lower left corner of the desk was touched by her hand as the girl sighed. She hoped Sara wouldn't think of her as a grotesque person or even worse… feel sorry for her. No…She knew the woman felt sorry for her. It's part of their nature; someone who has tasted tragedy in a way that the other person might never or at least not to such extremes, experience, sees them as a pitiful creature, struck by bad luck. 

"Evelyn, could you come down here please?" she then heard her stepmother calling.

"In a minute, mum!" Evelyn responded and took out the things from the rucksack and placed them on the desk surface before rushing downstairs.

She did not get to touch the last step when her eyes widened and a surprising smile stretched across her face when she saw her stepmother standing next to a young American Eskimo dog. "Cherry!" she exclaimed and rushed towards the dog that wagged her tail and barked loudly as a sign of mutual excitement. Hugging her, Evelyn asked: "How did you get her here, mum?"

"Your aunt wanted her to come."

Evelyn looked up at her mother, sensing the change in Grace's tone. "Why? She loves Cherry…"

"She thought it would be best if Cherry remained here."

Evelyn's hand that scratched Cherry's head lightly stopped. "I thought she was getting better."

Grace shook her head and her eyes watered almost immediately. "The cancer has spread… it's too late for surgery," the woman's voice subdued to the pressure of her teary eyes.

"Mum…" Evelyn stood up and embraced her stepmother.

"She doesn't have long; she… wanted you to have Cherry… 'She's too young anyway' was her response."

Evelyn took the news immensely. She wasn't very close to Grace's sister but the news was tough on her.

* * *

A few hours later, the dinner was being set on the table. "How was your stay at Sara's place?" she asked her stepdaughter. 

"It was… ok," Evelyn responded and smiled at Cherry who was lying on the floor next to the fireplace.

"That doesn't sound like a good answer," Grace noticed and brought the plates on the table.

"It was good, mum." Evelyn chose not to tell her of Sara's involvement in Laney's case. "I was just tired when I came and we didn't talk much."

"Ok. Did you have any problems?"

"Not really but… I saw a picture of her with Mr. Grissom…" she paused. "It looked pretty," she said and placed the clay dish with black bread on the table.

Grace stopped and looked at her. "Did you show Sara your picture of George?"

"No. She'll probably think I'm a psycho or something."

"Why would she think that? There's a resemblance between them. It's nothing psychotic," she smiled.

Evelyn did not respond but took the forks and knives instead.

Grace understood the message. "You want to see him again, don't you?"

Evelyn returned Grace's look and sighed. She nodded. "If he only had brown eyes he'd be just like him. I don't know…" she sighed again and headed towards the fridge.

"Evelyn… maybe you shouldn't go there anymore," Grace told her.

"The case is still not closed, mum. They might need me again."

"But you already did your bit there."

Evelyn turned around, leaving the refrigerator door opened. "Why don't you want me to go?"

"How old is Mr. Grissom?"

"I don't know… around fifty I guess. Why?"

Grace crossed her arms. "Well, I'm not sure it's a good idea to be around someone that reminds you of your father so much."

"Why?"

"It's been six years, sweetie… it's maybe better if you could try to avoid him?"

"You just said that it's no big deal that they are so similar."

"I know but…"

"Mum." Evelyn stopped her. "I'll be alright, quit worrying!" she assured her.

Grace observed her stepdaughter's calm reaction and quietly accepted it. "Ok, Evelyn."

She took the glasses from counter and placed them on the table. She trusted her stepdaughter but she was also worried. Evelyn had managed to get over her father's death three years after the accident. Grace was unsure how this similarity of the CSI would influence Evelyn now.

* * *

The sun appeared pale this morning as Sara slipped between her bed sheets and closed the blinds, not feeling comfortable enough with the sun rays tickling her skin playfully when her mood had barely adjusted to a brighter one. 

The night was long and she felt tired but sleep did not come easily to her. Lying comfortably on the side, her gaze was caught gently by the picture next to her bed and incredibly close to her face. It was not decorated by some unnecessary wooden, metal or frames from some other origin. It was simply leaning against the small square candle and Sara liked that simplicity because the photograph itself was perfect the way it was; it did not need anything to spoil that, like a frame would.

She was dressed in a red silky sleeveless shirt and black jeans with her hair brought down to her shoulders with a few strains riding gently on the fragile wind that had been present on that day in Tokyo . Leaning closer to her, Grissom wore a simple navy blue shirt and long white pants with the most beautiful decoration on his face – a true, wholesome smile.

Those were two magical weeks. Japan was breath-taking, the people as friendly as they could be, and the different culture, the curiosity… everything was placed perfectly in that vacation – the longest any of them had taken. They were alone there, just the two of them. No work, no dead bodies but life and the sweet sensation of flawless intimacy instead.

Sara watched the people on that picture a lot lately, probably because she missed the closeness which the two shared. Suddenly tossing to the other side, Sara shut her eyes tightly to force her brain to give in and let her fall asleep but ten seconds later a gentle push of agony beneath her scalp warned her otherwise. Cursing the inability of her consciousness to drift away, she was required to open her eyes and just look around the room and specifically the other, empty side of the bed.

Her knuckles slid onto the soft surface of the sheet across the empty space. He would leave such a delightful coating of warmness after he'd spend a night here. So comforting, so reassuring. She would often feel that with her hand and the 'residue' would always send a sweet shivering wave through her body, making her smile.

She had a nightmare the night after Laney's case, before he left in the morning. The images were dark and frightening, digging inside her to pull out whatever could cause her to scream and run; it had increased her heartbeats as she tried to escape the cruelty but her attempts seemed pathetic and disorganized until finally, her mind not being able to keep her inside the maze when a scream tore away the images, revealed the darkness of the room in which she slept.

Her skin exposed the secretion of sweat as a result of her subconscious panic and her lips gulped as much air as her lungs could handle. She was frightened still when a silky, youthful voice called her. "Sara?" and her arms felt his hands touching them softly. Her face turned to meet his and she barely moved although the shock had not abandoned her just yet. Her hands touched her face, feeling the sweat dripping from her forehead and painting it on the rest of her face as her fingers slid down to her chin and she sighed deeply.

Sara looked over at him again. The concern in his eyes was barely visible as he understood that it had only been a nightmare but that concern had depth and when he asked her what happened in his own delicate manner, the emotion woven with a feeling of comfort, it flowed into her; her skin seeping the energy that her arms used to wrap themselves around his waist as if having a mind of their own. Her head touched his chest, next to his heart. She needed to hear those beats, the soothing, assuring melody that they always managed to play for her. It did not matter that her body was sweaty; his arms took her closer to him before she said: "Laney… Grissom, it was Laney. She screamed. She called for me to help her but I couldn't."

"Oh... Shh… It's nothing. It's just empathy, Sara. Only empathy," he whispered to her.

Those words were everything to her at that moment; his embrace was a safety blanket; his voice – the rope which pulled her out of the frightful nightmarish waters. "Why can't it go away...?" The voice was sad and quiet. She hoped he would give her an answer to ease her even more, so she waited while embraced in that secure shelter in his arms.

"Give it time, honey. It'll go away on its own," he spoke and lay down once more without letting go of the woman which he held.

"You think it could?" Like a frightened child she held onto him while asking questions.

His lips touched her forehead. "You know it will," he said.

Sara's eyes finally rose up to meet Grissom's after the two of them had laid there in silence for what appeared to be an hour. Blue could be associated with iciness, undone affection but his eyes showed something else… something slightly more hospitable. She could easily see deeper into them and with each moment passed she could feel herself being wrapped slowly but steadily in the thickness of his soothing encirclement. They encouraged her to keep swimming and enter further down, deeper and deeper until finally she could touch the first, although thick and impenetrate to others, thin and warmly, welcoming layer of his soul for her.

That touch had its effect: her heartbeats started slowing down, returning somehow to their normal pace.

It is a beautiful thing to venture into an untouched territory, places not revealed to anyone before, places that even their owner had never been aware of. Sara had that privilege here and it felt quietly incredible to her. This was what love had done to the man. This was what a final discovery of emotions for another human being had done. The precious gems inside him – his desires, thoughts, kept hidden away from anyone, from the world, untouched, unspoiled, and unhurt. He then handed her the key and with a nervous and yet confident hand, Sara opened the doors there inside, past the cobwebs of insecurities, the rocks of fear, the thinner gates of withdrawn affection. Now, she knew him and he used that to comfort her back to the secure place of a more loving and friendly reality, a refuge… with him.

Sara did not know when they fell asleep but she never forgot that night… one of many. He was there in the middle of the night, on her bed, ready to take her back home, to save her and breathe in the familiar signs of safety.

Now, it was different. She was alone. It hurt. Sara needed him. She shouldn't but she did. She sat upright and circled the room with her eyes, searching for a phone. Maybe she could call him. Grissom wouldn't mind. But… he has probably laid down to rest. A sad sigh escaped her. Yes, she should let him sleep. Lying down again, Sara buried her hands beneath the soft pillow and slowly let her eyelids fall before her eyes. She would think of Japan … it would put her to sleep easily… it usually did.

* * *

"You know, Sara… Since not many people know the type of language used to write the poems on the victims… Why did Evelyn bother to waste time with a language that's… dead?" Nick asked while they were putting the pieces of evidence back in the paper bags the next evening. 

Sara's gaze froze unnoticeably. He appeared ignorant and she disliked it. She appeared less friendly tonight and she disliked that. Evelyn hadn't told her the reason but Sara could easily come up with an answer of her own. "She's probably just interested in rare languages," Sara responded.

"It's odd, don't you think?" he pondered.

Sara watched him carefully. Her face changed to a frosted facial sculpture when she realized what her colleague might be thinking. "You're not serious," she said.

"I'm not saying she's a suspect but…"

"But you're getting there, aren't you?"

Nick shrugged.

Sara shook her head in disbelief. "Way to go, Nicky. While we're at it, why don't we arrest all the people out there… scientists for that matter, who just so happen to be studying rare languages such as this one!" It hadn't been a yell but the tone was an unsympathetic one.

Sara's sudden change of attitude caught the CSI off guard. "Wow, take it easy, Sara. I wasn't accusing her."

"She's just a teenager. And even if you were accusing her, there's no way she could have strangled those victims like that. She barely has any muscle on her!"

"Ok, ok! I'm on your side," Nick said with his palms opposite Sara. "Jeez, what is up with you?"

Her eyes rushed from one eye to the other on Nick's face. Although not pleased by his earlier comments, Sara realized the eradication to which her behavior was being introduced. She sighed and looked down. "She's only a teenager," Sara repeated.

"So you told me," Nick's perception changed along with Sara's tone.

"See you later, Nick," she said and started walking towards the door.

"Sara, I'm sorry but I'm only keeping an open mind here."

"That's an excuse," she dared to mock his comment.

* * *

While walking out, her attention was loosely focused on something else which resulted in a close coalition with her former supervisor. Pulling a sudden brake on her feet, Sara then saw Grissom. She only raised her hands when realizing the possible clashing result and walked passed him without speaking out a single word. 

Confused, Gil Grissom was not given the chance to ask when her quick steps distanced Sara enough from him and then a left turn made her disappear completely from his view. Turning around, he then noticed Nick coming out of the room. "Did something happen?" he asked the younger CSI.

"Uh, yeah."

"What?"

"She… overreacted."

"What do you mean 'overreacted'?"

"I mentioned Evelyn and Sara freaked out"

Grissom perched his lips. He suspected this. "What did you say?"

"We were talking about possible suspects and I only mentioned that Evelyn could be…"

"A suspect?"

"Not like that but, I only meant that we should keep our minds and… options opened."

"I see."

"And Sara suddenly got hyper. I wasn't even accusing Evelyn and she…"

"That's ok, Nick," Grissom cut him off.

"I didn't think that would piss her off like that."

Grissom watched him for a while and then glanced behind him, in the direction of Sara's departure. "Go back to work," he told Nick and turned around.

"Wow, wait," Nick then called him.

"What?" Grissom stopped and only slightly shifted his body.

"You're gonna go talk to her?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"She didn't seem to keen on talking," Nick warned him.

Giving a smirk, Grissom turned around and continued his walk instead.

"Fine, don't say I didn't warn ya," Nick spoke quietly and shook his head before returning to his own work.

* * *

Her slim, feminine figure was the only living thing present in the darker room when Grissom walked in. Her shoulders were raised while she was facing the window and watching whatever might have been happening outside. "Sara…" his soft tone was heard. 

"I'm not in the mood to speak," she responded with restraining irritation.

"Alright," Grissom walked over to the window, standing next to her. "Hey," he called her again.

This time Sara was forced to acknowledge his presence with her eyes as his call was not of voice but silence instead. Grissom had let his hands speak. She sighed and motioned back to him; another sign of years spent together. "Evelyn can't be a suspect. Nick was way off with that."

"You're doing it again," his hands talked.

"And what's that?"

"You know very well."

Sara sighed annoyingly and continued with the various signs and gestures. "I'm not getting attached emotionally again," she emphasized that. "I'm not doing that."

"Alright, then why react like that?"

"It's not just Nick, Grissom… this entire shift has been crappy," she gave herself an excuse. Sara admitted to herself that her earlier emotional spill was harsh and perhaps dumb.

At that moment, Greg came into the room with mug of coffee in his hands. He noticed Grissom and Sara by the window and the silent conversation which they were having. Greg understood that this was a conversation of a personal nature; lately, whenever those two would speak like that privately it only meant a subject that they were not willing to share with others. "O-k… I can see I'm not wanted here," Greg told himself and quickly exited the room, leaving them alone.

"Sara, an exposure of emotions like that one may have been slightly acceptable in the past but you have a new position now and that necessitates you to stop or at least not expose it like that."

"Gil… I don't need another lecture."

"It isn't a lecture, just an advice from a friend." Seeing as she did not respond, Grissom continued: "You are letting the Krostoles case affect you again through Evelyn. Why?"

"She told me some things."

"What kind of 'things'?"

Sara ignored his question. "She's had a rough life. But she's trying to find a good future for herself and I don't think she would risk that with something like that."

Grissom nodded slowly. "I do agree with you, it is highly unlikely that she could be involved in the murders but Nick didn't know about you two or just her for that matter."

"So, my behavior wasn't acceptable? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"No, whatever she may have said to you, besides Laney, it affected you more than you allowed it to. However, perhaps your earlier comments to Nick may not have seen the best moments to be said like that."

She did not take this easily. "I can't believe this. You're defending him?"

"I'm doing no such thing. I'm only suggesting that you might have been a bit… harsh."

"A bit harsh…" she repeated.

Grissom didn't respond, only kept his eyes gently with hers.

"I didn't even raise my voice at him."

"Regardless."

"Grissom!"

He only tilted his head and waited for her reaction instead of giving a response.

Sara hated when he did that as it usually helped in cracking her shell for those few moments. "Fine… I might have been. I might have surprised myself in the process also, but… ok, stop looking at me like that." she warned him.

"I haven't done anything," he shrugged.

"Oh, yes you did. You're making me feel guilty now, aren't you?" She would murder him. If she wasn't careful, she might give in and even smile… no matter how difficult it might seem.

"You're doing that yourself, I merely give my opinion."

"Aha… thanks a lot, Griss," she shook her head. Her hands ceased with their language. "Please, no more 'words of wisdom' for now, ok?" Her voice was finally heard as she sensed his next sentence. She felt irritated at herself and she needed no one to remind her.

Grissom said nothing but simply kept his eyes on her, allowing the silence to take over for a while. She might have been regretting her comments from earlier and he could see that. Empathy… it never left her.

* * *

She should have brought Cherry with her. What ever possessed her to take this shortcut was truly beyond her. Evelyn buried her hands in the pockets of her jacket and kept going on the empty street with an increasing speed. Maybe she could run… if she was chased. It was quiet and much darker than expected as more than a few street lights happened to burn out 'just in time'. Exhaling, she kept her eyes only on the invisible line in front of her feet as she felt frightened to glance outside of that. She wished someone would appear… anyone. The loneliness of this street did not resemble a Saturday night at all. The quiet buzzing sound had briefly combined with the silky silence and clogged her ear canals. Pressing her hands against her ears, a quick shuffling noise was felt and soon the canals were opened again. That had only increased the silence, making Evelyn regret her earlier action. 

It was late. Close to midnight or perhaps later than that. She had forgotten her watch earlier and made a mental note to herself never to do that again. Yawning for the lateness, Evelyn lifted her hand to cover her mouth when in a quick flash, something passed before her eyes. Whatever it might have been, it soon pressed her hand against her throat with such pressure that it begun to tighten itself around it, squeezing more oxygen out of her. Panic surged through her while her heart started beating out of control. Unaware of anything else but the desperate attempt to set herself free, Evelyn's throat felt the thin but strong material tightening. Her eyes watered, blurring the image of the empty street in front of her, distorting anything which might have a solid shape. She wanted to scream but her vocal cords were not holding up. She needed air. She desperately needed air as her heart threatened to break through her chest.

Then some loud, cheerful voices were heard from the other end of the street. Her strength was slowly draining from the suffocation but she heard the voices and threw her free left hand back, touching the face of her attacker before scratching it viciously like a cat that struggles to survive from her captor. The surprise from the possible victim and the voices must have affected the attacker's actions when Evelyn felt a sudden release from the pressure and the hideous weakness in her legs, forcing her to fall to the ground. Fighting for air and chocking due to the overwhelming amounts which she needed, Evelyn's eyes could barely focus on her surroundings.

Four young people ran to the fallen girl. A young woman kneeled down next to Evelyn. "Are you ok?" she asked her.

But Evelyn could not reply as the shock took away her consciousness and her head fell on the woman's lap. "Call 911!" was the last thing she heard for a while before the darkness devoured her.

* * *

Grissom and Sara walked through the hallway after an attack was reported, possibly the same killer. "How old was the victim?" he asked. 

"A teenager. But she might have seen something. Good thing she survived," Sara said and pushed the doors that lead to the small room with the bed. When they entered, Sara and Grissom came across the young girl with her hazel hair tucked messily back behind her ears, eyes fixed on the floor. "Oh, no. Evelyn…" Sara whispered and approached the teen.

Evelyn's eyes rose up to acknowledge the presence of the two adults in the room. The brown color was slowly absorbed by a darker shade showing the visitors that she was still shaken from the attack; the dark bruises around her neck, tattooed onto her skin gave a clearer picture of the previous ordeal. Evelyn slid off the bed and quickly walked up to Grissom, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "I'm scared, Dad…" she whispered and a quiet, fragile sob followed from her.


	6. chapter 6

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

Unable to come up with suitable words, Grissom let his eyes wander around, before freezing onto Sara's as the girl's small body almost started shaking along with her voice. Gently, he placed his hands on Evelyn's back and recognizing her degree of previous trauma, allowed himself to at least return her frightened embrace.

Sara's puzzlement was of the same measure as Grissom's while she observed Evelyn and then met Grissom's bewildered stare. Taking her time to comprehend the entire picture, she felt relieved that he offered the teen some kind of comfort.

A nurse appeared in the doorway. "Are you her parents?" she asked Grissom and Sara.

"Um, no, we're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab," Sara quickly approached the nurse and showed her the identifications.

"Alright"

"How is she?" Sara asked and closed the door behind her, leaving Evelyn to cry in silence, undisturbed for a while longer.

Evelyn said nothing as she slightly tightened her embrace and stared into nothingness with no tears to dare and fall. Letting the silence absorb Evelyn's soft sobs, Grissom allowed her to be comforted by the momentarily simplicity of the few solitary moments.

When sufficient time passed, he asked her softly: "What happened?"

She sighed, attempting to devour as much air as she possibly could, without an accidental spill of her emotions through liquid. "I'm glad you're here, daddy. I was so scared..." with the last three words her fragile voice turned into a pathetic squeak. "Please don't go..." she made a quiet plea and retrieved one faithful tear, forbidding it from falling.

Grissom's embrace faintly tightened to help Evelyn feel that desperately needed consoling. "I'm not going anywhere." he said. "Can you try and tell me what happened to you?" He needed the information but also stood behind the barriers that were placed there by Evelyn's state with the only intention of keeping her away from further unnecessary distress.

"I was going home... it was dark and I was alone. I shouldn't have gone alone but Lea couldn't come because she had a headache. It was ok... Then something started chocking me. I don't know what it was. I couldn't hear anything..." she paused and squirmed.

"It's ok, Evelyn... go on," Grissom encouraged her.

"It felt sharp... I panicked."

"Did you see who it was?"

"No, they attacked me from behind. I couldn't see..."

"Mm..."

"I don't really remember... I don't remember," she appeared frightened admitting that.

"That's ok..." Grissom said and gently distanced himself enough to unwrap her arms from his neck. While doing so, Evelyn's gaze fell on his and he noticed her expression change drastically. Her eyes were drained from color with the same speed as her face; her mouth kept moving but she appeared numb. He could read traces of regret and some other emotions not easily identified. Grissom watched this change calmly and felt close to asking the reason when his hands which had a loose grip on Evelyn's wrists, brought her hands in front of him. While the right hand had been covered in bandages, something on her left hand suddenly caught his attention; more precisely, under her long nails. "Evelyn. come sit down here," he then told her and guided her back to her bed. "I'll be right back, ok?" he smiled briefly and waited for her to at least nod in agreement.

The color in her eyes began reappearing slowly as her gaze was fixed on his in such a way that if she were to look away, he would disappear. "Evelyn?" she heard him once again. That had been the definitive wake up call that gradually threw her gaze on the floor, and she nodded.

Grissom exited the room and met Sara who had finished talking with the nurse. "Get your kit," he told her.

"What?... What did you find?"

"Bits of skin tissue under her fingernails."

"Skin tissue?" Sara glanced through the small rectangular window of the door. "Could be the killer's. I'll be right back," she said and hurried to her vehicle. "Oh, Griss?" she turned around.

"Yeah?"

"Grace is on her way, could you...?"

Grissom responded with a nod. He then returned to the room and approached Evelyn who appeared to have not moved a single muscle since he had left. Placing his hands in his pockets, Grissom hoped she would speak out something but she remained numb. "How are you feeling?" he tried.

"I don't know," she replied.

He studied her carefully, letting a questionable thought about this girl's psychological state enter his mind. With her stillness, she could have easily imitated a statue. Giving a long sigh, he closed his eyes briefly. Removing his glasses, he then heard Evelyn's voice.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Narrowing his eyes, Grissom did not respond verbally but instead waited for her explanation.

Evelyn's gaze appeared insecure and the mood of embarrassment made her feel quite ridiculous in some way. Those words had escaped her range of control before, but she regretted them. Her lips were frozen this time. Whatever phrase or word wanted to slip through them, it couldn't. Fear had shut them down, bolting them. That simple name caused her body to be swallowed by the sheltered hysteria of her mind, to escape the uncomfortable silence.

"Can you remember anything else?" he asked softly. Grissom could sense the tension that had surrounded her and probably had seeped into her skin, touching her muscles, leaving her almost anesthetized.

"No," she said and dropped her gaze for a moment. "Why did you take my jacket?" Evelyn then asked.

"Any traces your attacker might have left are probably on that. It's evidence for now."

"Ok." Evelyn crossed her arms and pressed her teeth against her lips so much that their skin would surely make an opening for a few drops of blood to squeeze through. Her gaze was not rid of that pesky nervousness just yet as she looked up at Grissom. "You know, you shouldn't press your eyebrows down so much," she somehow gathered up enough courage to tell him that but the result were the large amounts of saliva that were secreted to clog the opening of her throat, forcing Evelyn to swallow it down.

The left side of Grissom's lips stretched further to show the lightness of his answer. "Why's that?" he asked.

"It gives you a, um, meaner look. You have a friendly face, Mr. Grissom, minus the traverse eyebrows."

The right side of Grissom's lips gave the man a full, although thin, smile. "I'll take that into consideration," he said.

"I'm sorry for earlier, Mr. Grissom. I was scared..." Her voice had cracked the last solid piece of wording. "I thought you were him. I-I... was almost sure, I..." she shook her head and glanced at her trembling fingers. "I wanted you to be him..." she whispered...

"Who?"

"My father," she told him.

Evelyn's response somewhat surprised Grissom once again but when Sara returned to the room it broke the effect. "Your mum will be here in a few minutes," she told Evelyn and sat down next to her.

Throwing a soft glance at Sara, Grissom then stood up and slowly walked out of the room, without saying anything.

Sara glanced at him, noticing his quiet behavior. Although curious, and perhaps even worried, she would look into that later.

"He thinks I'm strange..." Evelyn then said.

"Grissom?"

"Yeah. I don't blame him."

"It can seem that way but... He doesn't, Evelyn... he's not like that. If anything, I think he does understand, in his own way."

Evelyn sighed and moved her left hand over her right forearm with the intention of pressing her fingernails against the skin, when Sara gently took it. Not saying anything, she only watched her hand being taken by Sara's.

"Did you scratch who ever attacked you?" she asked her softly.

"I don't remember..."

"Well," Sara raised her hand for the teenager to have a better view at the space beneath her fingernails. "I think you have, and that's going to help us a lot," she told her and smiled softly.

"Ok," Evelyn responded and looked up at Sara. The woman did care about her after all.

* * *

When Grace came in Evelyn's room, she found her stepdaughter sitting on her bed with her back facing the doorway. Cherry slept quietly next to the bed; the faint sound of an Irish melody traveled softly through the room, and the gray color of the sky from the outside gave the entire picture a sad, hopeless piece of someone's history before it shatters to pieces into the small holes of forgetfulness.

When the older woman sat on the bed next to Evelyn, she saw her holding a photograph in her hands, staring at it as if it were the only object in this entire room.

"I was scared... when he came in the room I thought it was him... I wanted him to be Dad..." barely any voice left her lips, willing instead to allow the whispers to be heard and tame them.

Grace's hand touched Evelyn's back as the woman watched her stepdaughter's face worryingly. She knew it would come to this. Grace wondered if Evelyn really accepted George's death at all.

"I called him 'dad'. I didn't mean to. It came out on its own, mum," Evelyn confessed and placed the picture of her father on the bed's surface.

Grace gathered Evelyn in her arms. She shouldn't visit that place anymore. Evelyn didn't need any more resurrecting images of her father. Vegas brought nothing but cursed bad luck to this poor soul.

* * *

"Ok, Chris, tell me something that'll make me smile," Nick said when he entered the DNA lab.

Chris was a replacement for Greg after the latter's interests and eagerness for the work in the field became something more to him. Holding a paper in his hands, the young lab technician with unusually blue eyes, kept a straight face. "Sorry, Nick," he responded and showed the comparison results of the DNA that had been found beneath Evelyn's fingernails, the string of hair from the second victim, and the two black hairs on Evelyn's jacket.

"Oh, man!" Nick took the paper and looked at the results. He then looked up at the technician and shook his head. "You keep doing that and I'm gonna have to convince Sara not to give you a raise in the future," he told him.

Chris chuckled and turned around to continue with the samples he received earlier from another case. "Greg's charm and even yours is nothing compared to mine, Nick. Tell Sara whatever you want," he joked.

"Keep talking like that, Chris, just keep talking," Nick commented and exited the laboratory.

* * *

"Do they match?" Sara eagerly took the paper and looked at it.

"Yes, they do."

"Some good news in a while... Finally," she clenched her fist and smiled. "Well, at least now we know Evelyn couldn't be the killer," Sara glanced at him and then continued looking at the chart.

"You're still up on that?"

"Nope."

"How is she?" he asked her to make sure.

Sara looked at him. "Talked to Mrs. Presnowitz. She's ok, just still shaken a bit."

Nick nodded and smiled slightly.

Sara responded to that with an awkward smile of her own when her cell phone rang. "Sidle... We're there," she closed the phone. "Another body," Sara told him.

"He's quick," Nick said as both hurried outside.

* * *

This had been a higher hill, leaving the investigators to ponder how the killer could have carried his victim all the way up here without leaving any tire tracks. Looking up, the movement of the dark clouds worried her as they got nearer, and clashed almost angrily against each other. It would rain soon, they needed to hurry.

"You know, I'm gonna start thinking our killer's some sort of goat," Nick said as they soon realized the terrain had not been very accessible by car or even jeep.

Giving him a look, Sara placed her feet on a bigger rock that managed to elevate her enough to have a clear view of the crime scene. "An intelligent goat, you'd say?" she joked.

"Do you always have to have a come-back to what I say?"

"Only when there's a desperate need," she teased and tilted her cap back.

"You're some piece of work, Sara."

"Thank you, Nick," she said and began observing the familiarly staged scene.

Her thin lifeless hands were placed across her lap; her left leg stretched out, while her right one had been slightly bent. With the right side of her body leaning against a marble statue, her chalk-colored hair covered her face already drained of life. The signature velvet cloth and engravings were present with only one detail which appeared new: the black locks of her hair had been combed. Watching this, were the shallow but yet sad eyes of another winged angel, with its hands pressed together, giving a silent prayer for the victim in front of it.

"Nietzsche once said: He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster," Sara said, while tracing the carvings on the girl's skin with the pale beam of her flashlight.

"Well, he must be fighting with an army of them." Nick placed his field kit down. "You're scary," he then said.

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"You keep giving quotations... That's too much time with Grissom."

Sara only glanced at her colleague and returned her attention to the body. "She looks young," she noted.

Standing next to Sara, Nick took a closer look of the victim's face. "Yeah... couldn't have been older than seventeen," he said.

"He couldn't get Evelyn so he took her instead."

"This is going to be tough... explaining it to her parents."

"Yeah." She took a step forward. "Look at her hair," Sara then said.

Nick directed his flashlight towards the victim's head.

"It's been brushed. The other two victims had messy hair; she has an almost perfectly tidy hair."

"You're right. He's adding stuff."

"'Why' is the question."

"Hopefully we'll find something around here that'll tell us," Nick said and pulled out the camera while Sara treaded softly on the grass, where the color of each strand eerily matched that of the girl's hair. The trees thick; the branches long with their shimmering leafs animating noise that easily managed to rush to the surface of the person's skin and pinch it sufficient number of times for the hairs to rise up and stiffen for a few seconds.

A good guess could have been placed to how many of the people present at this site had actually known it before. It looked deserted, even for a place that served as a home to skeletons and perhaps even fresh corpses. There were no flowers on any of the graves, no burned out candles or any other sign of recent visitors. It appeared as if it had been forgotten, the area, along with its dead. Some place for a cemetery...

"Drops of blood!" Nick yelled out when he noticed the bloody stains on a small stone next to the grave. "Could be the vic's."

"Or, with luck, the killer's," Sara added. Her movement was then ceased when she noticed a shining object next to the thick and visible roots from one of the trees. Crouching down, Sara kept the flashlight on the object and this time revealed not one but two objects: a thin silver chain with a locket and underneath it a plastic comb. "Well, hello," she smiled and pulled out her camera.

After taking the photographs, she then picked up the locket and opened it. It was empty. "It was probably hers..." Sara thought and sighed. Placing the objects in the bags, she then looked up at the sky once again. Rain would fall pretty soon.

* * *

Sara stopped when she spotted Evelyn sitting silently in the waiting area. Sighing uncomfortably, she couldn't shake away the guilt which clanged the edges of her conscious, for the request which she made for the teen's assistance once again.

Evelyn's fingers tapped softly on the chair's surface as her eyes combed the surface of her rucksack with such intensity as if a curious and colorful image had appeared there; her hazel hair, no longer captured in a single braid, hung freely down, with a few thick locks over her left shoulder. Sara could guess the reason for that change. Evelyn wished to cover the bruises in some natural, less obvious way.

Had it not been for the random order of which the killer had chosen his victims - a bartender, a stripper and now a shop clerk - Sara's guilt would probably grow further inside her for bringing Evelyn in here, to be part of this investigation. She wished there had been at least one graduated expert on this language, then maybe Sara could spare the teenager from these situations and their unpleasantness.

Taking a deep breath, Sara then stepped inside the room. "Hey, Evelyn," she greeted the young girl who looked up at her just like all that other times when they've met.

Evelyn didn't speak.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm ok."

"I'm glad... Thank you for coming," Sara said and sat down next to her.

"My mum was hesitant about it," Evelyn then told her. "But I wanted to come."

"Are you sure this is ok for you?" Sara asked her, worried. Evelyn was a necessity to the case by now, although Sara had wished otherwise.

Evelyn nodded. "Someone wanted me to live on the expense of some other person's life..." she swallowed nervously, "...again. I want to help."

Sara smiled briefly and glanced at the folder in her hands. She admired the girl's courage after everything. "You're pretty brave," she admitted to her.

"I learned that I have to be," Evelyn replied.

Sara opened the folder and pulled out a photograph of the victim's right arm.

Evelyn took the photograph and began observing the carvings. "The leg... how old was this victim?"

Sara hesitated for a moment, wondering how the closeness of age would register with Evelyn. "Seventeen," she then said.

"Why so young?" Evelyn spoke pensively.

"We don't know."

"Do you. have a picture of her face?" Evelyn looked at Sara.

Sara nodded and after a quick search, pulled out a photograph of the girl's face. Slowly, she gave it to Evelyn.

Evelyn's eyes observed the image almost idly. Whatever emotion she was going through, it was not visible on her face. "She died instead of me."

Sara was quiet.

"She is pretty."

"Yes, she is."

"Her parents are devastated..."

"They are... They want to know who did this to her," Sara spoke softly, keeping the same tone from the beginning.

Evelyn's eyes quickly traveled over to Sara's. The hazel hid everything except the trace of remorse. She then looked down at the other photograph. Giving some time to herself to recognize each letter and punctuation properly, she then started to read the engraved letters: "Through diverse passages, the world's bright lamp...um, rises to mortals." Her face was brought closer to the photograph for a clearer view. "But through that which joins four circles with the... uh, this word is not clear. After that its 'in best course and in happiest group', or... constellation set..."

Sara listened to the words and waited for every word for which Evelyn managed to translate, to be finished. "Another poem," she then said once that moment came.

* * *

When another poem was discovered to have been engraved on the victim's body, Evelyn's work done for tonight, Sara stood up, prepared to escort Evelyn back to her home when the teenager asked: "Sara... is Mr. Grissom here?"

"No, he's in the field at the moment."

"Oh," Evelyn's tone showed disappointment. "Will it be ok if I see Betsy again?"

Sara sighed quietly. "Sure," she replied and started walking along with Evelyn when she was stopped.

"Can I go alone?"

Uncertainty popped up once again but for some reason, Sara gave in to this request. "Alright," she said and allowed Evelyn to continue on her own. "Do you remember where it was?" she asked.

"Yes, thanks," Evelyn showed a brief line next to her lips which by some could have been interpreted as a smile.

* * *

Evelyn felt nervous when she entered Gil Grissom's office for the second time; by herself for the second time. Although curious for another glance at the tarantula, she needed to have another look of this work space. Evelyn wished that he would not think of her as some type of a stalker.

She walked over to the cage and bent down to observe the small spider, standing still in her own space. Betsy was a fine specimen and from what Evelyn could tell, one that had been well taken care of. This time Evelyn did not remove the tarantula from her 'home' but instead remained as an outside observer.

After a while, Evelyn removed her attention from the glass cage and let her eyes wander around the gray atmosphere of the room. She walked towards the shelves and stopped in front of them, where she took her time studying each jar and its contents, and anything else available for observation. Sadly, some of the experiments brought back a few memories that she wished would have stayed buried away. Still, she continued to absorb each image and even smell of the displayed objects and beings, as well as everything which surrounded her in this room.

Her eyes then strolled over to the wall and the various pictures and texts with which it had been decorated. Her previous visit hadn't allowed her the luxury of time for such a 'private tour', so she relished this second visit. She then came across the framed image of the Kamehameha butterfly. Evelyn considered it for a few seconds, and gave a quick glance behind her to make certain that there wouldn't be anyone who would witness her next move.

When it appeared safer, she then lifted herself on her toes, and stretching out her hand she managed to get a good hold of the frame. Carefully she separated it from the wall and brought it on her own level, hoping that he would not find this disrespectful but rather an innocent sign of curiosity. She observed the specimen, pleased that it wasn't on a more distracting distance as before. "Pretty." she whispered and smiled tenderly. When her curiosity had been satisfied, Evelyn lifted herself up once again and just as carefully as she had previously removed the frame, she placed it back in its place.

Turning her head to her left, she met his desk. With hands behind her back, Evelyn walked over to it, resembling a curious visitor to a museum. Touching the chair, she soon seated herself there and with her hands having moved to her lap, she observed the contents on his desk which unfortunately presented nothing interesting but for Evelyn they were bits of information she wished to gather. She picked up a pen and rolled it between her fingers while observing the rest.

Although much bereavement decorated this room, apart from the living tarantula, she received some extraordinary sense of a concealed but still in attendance liveliness and a unique presence of a person's identity entwined among every object visible or invisible in this office.

Once the pen was placed back to where it had previously been found, Evelyn took a deep breath and gradually released it as this brought back another memory of a ten year-old girl sitting behind her father's desk, observing the objects before her with hungry curiosity. Looking down, she then noticed the right drawer being slightly opened. Evelyn gave herself enough courage to glance at the door and then back towards the drawer. It would be a quick peak, nothing else.

Carefully she slid the drawer towards her, enough to reveal among other interesting objects which appeared important to an entomologist, a photo as well, hidden beneath a magnifying glass. She slid the magnifying glass with her fingers away and was presented with a better view of the picture.

It appeared to have been taken by a third person as the two people that were on it, were sitting on a stone bench with a mellow sunset behind them. Their backs turned to the camera but their faces turned towards each other, with stares that appeared to have been disconnected from everything else but each other. There was tenderness in this photograph. Evelyn could even feel that from the way Grissom and Sara's eyes had been fixed so affectionately onto each other. Love, perhaps...

The photograph tempted Evelyn enough to place her hand inside the drawer to try and pick it up when a rather unexpected voice startled her.

"What are you doing in here?" A hardly pleased voice echoed through the room, causing Evelyn to instinctively pull her hand out and immediately close the drawer. When she noticed the man who by now was standing in front of the desk, she felt incredibly guilty, like a thief caught in the act. What are the chances of such a thing happening twice? "I..." she quickly stood up, and distanced herself from the desk. "I'm sorry. I-I... didn't think anyone would come," she began stammering.

Grissom observed her behavior, terribly resembling that of a frightened rabbit. "You shouldn't be in here," he spoke softly with eyebrows raised.

"I know, I'm really sorry." Evelyn quickly retreated into a corner.

Grissom circled his desk while keeping an eye on the unexpected visitor. "Found whatever it was that you were looking for?"

"Yes, I... um, came to see Betsy and... um... and..."

"And you ended up sitting at my work desk," he finished for her, sensing the unusually growing nervousness in Evelyn.

"I was curious... I... uh, I saw, uh... I..." her nervousness was climbing further up, warning her of a possible secretion of sweat. She needed to get out of here... now. "I gotta go, my... I told my mother I'll be back around this time... um..." and as quickly as she could, Evelyn rushed out of Grissom's office.

Watching the empty doorway, Grissom narrowed his eyes in confusion, trying to find a suitable explanation for Evelyn's repeated visit.


	7. chapter 7

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

Sara flipped the two pages of the book before she glanced at the photograph of the last victim's left palm. An annoying sigh escaped her while her chin found its resting spot against her right hand.

"Another poem?" she heard Grissom's voice.

"Y-eah… The first one from ' Paradise '. So, you got my message."

"Well, I'm here aren't I?" he smiled. Sitting down on a chair next to Sara, Grissom moved closer to have a better view of the opened page.

"Yes, you are."

"So, what did you want to ask?" he asked her.

Sara glanced at him.

"You wouldn't have called otherwise," he said, waiting for her response.

"Yeah. Um… you're much more acquainted with this… what's this poem about?"

"This is when Dante is accompanied by Beatrice to the first heaven."

"First? More than one?"

"There are nine."

"I'm confused."

"In the poems, he finds out that Paradise is divided into nine spheres. The first seven represent seven planets like: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Each of these planets represented a particular virtue, and those who in life had exhibited this virtue became its inhabitants."

"That's nice… I could picture myself inhabiting Venus," she joked. "Ok, what about the other two?"

"The eight are the Fixed Stars where he meets many of the Apostles; the ninth heaven is where he has a glimpse of God."

"Aha… Who is she?"

"Beatrice?"

"Mm."

"She guides him through Paradise … Dante goes through the journey because of her, actually."

"So, she could lead him to… God?"

"Something like that, yes."

"Almost like his salvation…"

"Well… it is based on a real person."

Sara smiled tenderly. "Somehow I'm not surprised…. His wife?"

"No. He never even had an intimate relationship with Beatrice, both were married but… she was a pure love, an unattainable inspiration to him," he spoke softly, almost lovingly while his eyes circled absently across the pages of the book.

Sara's head rose up as she stared briefly in front of her, the soft tone of his words seeping into her, pinching her skin, discharging their meaning. She then slowly turned to look at the man sitting next to her. "Did they know each other?"

"They did."

"Friends?"

"Don't think so."

"But he loved her?"

"She was the objection of his affection and desire, so I think that says a lot."

"But they were never involved?"

"There's no evidence of that…" he said, keeping his gaze nailed onto the book.

Sara's eyes brushed against his skin, observing every inch of his face that was exposed to her, igniting a tingling desire inside her to touch that skin with her fingers and regardless of her will to do so, allow its feel to cause a sweet shivering rush through her body. "Must be an honor to be someone's inspiration like that," she spoke quietly, almost in envy of the woman in the poem.

"Then you must feel very honored yourself," he said and looked at her.

Those words rendered her silent; she became speechless, giving a sign to Grissom that his last few words touched her even deeper. He hoped for such silence to transpire as his words were sincere. Sara Sidle was his inspiration for a long time… since… well, forever; his subconscious had acknowledged that much sooner, years before his mind and consciousness ever did.

When that realization came to him, it changed much about him and his views towards his friend and colleague. His work was a part of him but she made it something more; her words, her voice, her gentle gaze, her mind, her attitude… every movement and every touch was inspiring for him and he grew affectionate towards it; even though that affection, in some rare moments, had trespassed over to a silent possessiveness.

She was his pure love.

Sara's heart sank further down, not because she felt something negative but because she felt quite the opposite… a subtle feeling of delight. It's interesting… even when their relationship developed, she never heard him admit such a delicate secret. Now, in his own, indirect way, he did, and she was wordless. His stare confirmed that quite boldly and those eyes never lied; eyes could never lie, no matter how trained or witty the person could be.

The moment was long, forming a thick bubble around them that was incredibly difficult to break away from, had it not been for the crude realization that they were at work. Sara quickly threw her gaze down at the papers in front of her. "I am…" she said. "I never knew," she then admitted.

The curvy lines which extended his eyes were shown daringly as his stare slightly changed. "I always thought you did."

"It did cross my mind once but I thought I was just being ridiculous."

"Well, now you know that you weren't," he told her and when her eyes met his again he smiled.

Sara returned that smile and soon after her attention to the papers as well. She had to return to her work, otherwise this would never let her go. "So, Beatrice plays a very important part in the Comedy."

"Yes. On many occasions during Dante's journey through Hell and Purgatory, when he starts to think that he can't move further on, it's the thought of Beatrice that keeps him going."

Sara swallowed a rough lump that had been involuntarily hanging by the entrance of her throat. She had no trouble connecting the images and metaphors of the poems with those of hers and Grissom's relationship – personal or otherwise. "Ok…" she had to return to the case. "This third victim had actually been treated better than the others."

"How come?" Grissom asked and was given a photograph of the girl's entire body by the statue.

"First: her hair. He took time to brush it." She then pulled out another photograph of the necklace and comb. "Found these as well. The other bodies had messed up hair and their belongings were never found. Plus," she pointed at the position of the victim's head. "Look how close it is to the statue's heart."

"You think that position could have relevance?"

"Yes. The others weren't positioned like that."

"Maybe he just couldn't find the same type of statue," he noted.

"I thought about that but there were similar statues as with the other two killings."

"You think he might have known her?"

"I don't know. And about the possible message we thought he was sending?"

"Yeah?"

"I was thinking that maybe he wasn't trying to tell anybody anything. I think that maybe he was doing this only for himself. First victim was in an abandoned shack, in the woods; second victim in a cemetery but a less noticeable area, the third again in a cemetery but one that barely anyone's ever heard of."

Grissom considered her proposition for a while and nodded. "He takes the bodies to places where there wouldn't be many people or any for that matter; he writes poems on the bodies with a language that no one's heard about… It makes sense," he agreed. "He probably picks the victims randomly."

"So, there's no pattern," she continued.

"But why The Comedy? Klyenear's alphabet - the language for communication with God, right?"

Sara nodded.

"He places the bodies next to statues that are or resemble angels. If he's trying to do some religious ceremony of sacrifice or something of that nature, why use Dante's Comedy? Why not some prayer?"

"I don't know…" she looked down at the rest of the documents. "Maybe he just likes the Comedy," she guessed and briefly smiled.

"Maybe he's one of those that think they're smarter than us." Grissom looked over at some of the other photographs.

When he heard nothing from Sara after some time, he looked over at her. She was holding a photograph of the victim's face, her expression sad. "You ok?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "Evelyn was so calm when she saw her. She felt guilty that this girl was killed instead of her. Can you believe that?" Sara turned her face towards him for a moment and faked a brief smile.

Grissom placed the documents back on the table and focused his entire attention on her. He could predict where this would lead….

"First she goes through this trauma of losing so many people important to her, then she is almost murdered and now she feels guilty 'cause of it, when none of it is her fault."

"Sara…"

"Her stepmother barely agreed for Evelyn to come and Evelyn came regardless of that."

"She wants to help."

"I don't understand this. Can't someone… some… some linguist just study this language? There are so many in this world. Didn't someone think that maybe this language could have some importance?"

Grissom's gaze held onto her face, especially her eyes, observing each muscle and movement carefully. He understood her concern for the teenager… perhaps that's why she called him; it hadn't been only the poem; Sara did not want anyone else to witness this spillage of anticipated faint emotions. "Do you want to give this case to Catherine?" he asked.

"No, no. She, um… she wouldn't be able to handle Evelyn. And… I'm close."

"Close?"

"To closing the case."

"You have a suspect?"

Sara kept quiet for a while. "Livano…" she then said.

"Maybe you sh-…"

"Why couldn't there have been someone?" she cut him off. "I mean, there's a scientist, a researcher for every language, dead or live or even extinct. And there's actually material on the Kylnear's language and no one, or at least no professional, knows about it. I can understand it being difficult, but hell, if an eighteen year-old girl can almost master it in six years… how… how ca-…"

"Sara." This time it was Grissom's turn. "You couldn't predict that she would be a victim. Although it would be easier for me if there had been someone with credentials that knew about the Kylnear's language…" he sighed. "I see that, we're pretty lucky to have found Evelyn. We need her now until this case it closed." He could sense her regret intensively enough.

"I know, I've been telling myself that, too. It just isn't fair…"

"Many things in life aren't. But, Sara…" he started and soon her eyes met his again.

"If she's come this far, she's a strong person. She will be fine."

"I just don't want something else to happen to her because I asked her to help us on this case."

"She was picked randomly, Sara, it isn't because of you or the case."

Sara's head fell between her opened hands; her eyes closed and she sighed heavily. "We have DNA but no one to match it to."

"What about the blood you found?"

"It was the victim's."

"Well…" he sighed. "There's one good thing… our killer is going to have scars," he said, moving his head slightly.

"Hm… that's true." His thought somehow helped. Remaining in the same position with her head in her hands, she then continued: "Gil," she said softly.

"Yes?"

"I'm sure you got it by now that I didn't call just 'cause of the case…"

"I know, Sara." He then whispered to her, "I know, honey."

* * *

Coming out of the station, Grissom touched his forehead softly. He groaned quietly, knowing that a headache would follow. As he continued towards his car, he noticed two men talking not far away. One of them was an officer in a uniform and the other one was Harold Grizwind. Any other day, Grissom would shudder and walk past this 'parasite' of a journalist but this time, something on Grizwind's face caught his attention.

When Grizwind noticed the senior CSI approaching, he parted with the officer and took a lonely spot on the sidewalk, while quickly scribbling something down on his notebook. "Gil Grissom."

"Grizwind. Still lurking around here, I see," Grissom said, putting his hands in his pockets.

The journalist looked up at him with sarcastic eyes. "I'm always on the look out for fresh info, Dr. Grissom. But if you're going to call me a cockroach, I'm afraid everyone else from your department beat you to it."

Grissom smirked at his remark. "I would never insult one of my favorite bugs like that, Grizwind. Don't worry."

Grizwind's gaze did not appear to be a thrilled one, although he tried to conceal that appearance; he shoved his pen and notepad quickly into his gray bag. "You always avoid me like the plague, Dr. Grissom, but I'm going to be brave enough and ask: Have something to share on the Red Letters case?"

"In fact I do," he smiled bitterly.

Grizwind quickly pulled out his mini tape-recorded, and after pressing the 'record' button, he brought the small machine closer to Grissom's face. "Your statement."

"It's on your face, Grizwind," Grissom told him with a, this time, eased smile.

* * *

Nick clicked on the last link and waited patiently for the results. When the information appeared on the screen, he scanned it carefully with his eyes. It didn't pass long before the displayed data drew a smile on his face. He took his cell phone and pressed Sara's number.

"What's up, Nick?"

"I did some research."

"On what?"

"On books. Did Evelyn mention to you where she found material about the language?"

"Yeah, some books from a friend and another book from the… library…" She got his hint. "What exactly did you find?"

"That the book has been rented by only two people."

"I'm listening."

"Evelyn and… dum, dum, dum… Harold Grizwind."

"Nice work!"

"Thanks."

"I also have news for you."

"What's that?"

"Grissom met Grizwind earlier and guess what?"

"Surprise me."

"He had scars on his face."

"Like Evelyn's attacker might've had?"

"Exactly."

"We have ourselves another suspect," Nick sounded pleased.

* * *

"Ah, the wonderful criminalists of Las Vegas ," Harold Grizwind leaned forward with a smile.

No one in the room responded to that smile, probably because not many liked the man. Over the years he had written several articles about the work of the Vegas Crime Lab and focused on the mistakes some of the employees would make, often calling it "sloppy work" or "incompetent workers that make the streets more dangerous than safe." They simply concluded that he had no respect for their work and therefore refused to ever give him any interviews or updates.

"Yes, we're beaming with pride to be standing in your presence," Nick said dryly.

"Before your questioning begins… am I a suspect here?" Grizwind asked. His light blue eyes gave more of an impression about a person not taking his vitamins rather than the naturalistic shade of the color; his smile was more of a warning sign that you could be robbed than a welcoming one.

"We'll see soon enough," detective Carolson responded. "How did you get those scratches on your face?"

"This?" he pointed at the fresh scarring.

"I don't see any other scratch mark," Carolson shrugged.

"My girlfriend," he responded. "It's a flaw of mine that I happen to like women with long nails."

"You had a fight?" Nick asked.

"Six days ago."

"And she scratched the left side of your face like that."

"You don't know her. She's a wild woman… which is a good thing for our bedroom activities."

"I'm sure it is," Carolson said unimpressed. "When did you say you got those scratches again?"

"Six days ago."

"I'd say it's from four," Nick told him.

"So very 'impressive', you're actually observant," Grizwind took a sarcastic note to his reply. "Yes, it is from almost four."

"Are you familiar with The Divine Comedy?" Carolson took her next question.

"Ah, Comedia. Of course I do. It's one of my favorite books; a masterpiece of literature."

"So, you know it pretty well, then?"

"Not by heart but I still read it often, yes. Have you read it?" he paused, pretending to anticipate an answer from the others. "No, of course not. Only intellectuals can understand it."

"How about the Kylnear's alphabet?" Nick asked, while ignoring Grizwind's snobbish comments.

"No," Grizwind responded.

"You're sure?"

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't be answering that, now would I."

"But you rented a book about it from the library."

Grizwind allowed himself no time for another answer. "All these questions, I guess I am a suspect then."

"We're not finished, Mr. Grizwind," Carolson told him.

"Great. We'll finish it through my lawyer." He stood up. "Hoping for a story, getting an interrogation. Uh, a journalist's job becomes more fucked up each day," he said and opened the door of the interrogation room. "Good day to you."

When the door closed, Nick shook his head. "You know, I'm hoping right now that he's the killer."

"In prison so he won't be a pain in the ass?" Carolson smiled at him and stood up.

"Exactly," Nick stood up and sighed. He looked over at the young detective. "So, you never answered my question from before."

"The one about dinner?"

"That one."

The red-haired woman paused and watched him for a while. "I'm not exactly your age, Mr. Stokes," she told him with a soft smile.

"Two years isn't much, detective," he persisted.

The quiet look from Donna Carolson gave a sign of consideration. "Alright. After the case is closed, why not?" she said and headed to the door. "You're a lucky bastard 'cause of your charm," she pointed at him and exited the room.

Chuckling shortly, Nick started gathering the documents on the table when his eyes accidentally drifted away for a moment on the floor. Something thin and black caught his interest. Crouching on the floor, Nick took a closer look and when he analyzed the piece better with his eyes, a satisfied smile appeared. Taking out a pair of tweezers and a small plastic bag from his pocket, he picked up the string of hair and placed it in the bag. "Thank you, Mr. Grizwind," he said while looking at the bag. An accident saved them the trouble of acquiring a warrant.

* * *

A soft knock was heard on the door of Grissom's office. "Come in," he replied.

The tall brunette slipped through the thin opening quite easily, as if she had done this many times before. When she was inside the office, she closed the door quietly behind her. "Hey," she greeted him softly.

"Hey, Sara." Taking a glimpse of his guest, Grissom quickly returned to the work in front of him on the desk.

"You got a minute?" she asked.

Grissom's work ceased; he recognized her tone. His eyes moved slowly up to her viewing level. "What is it?"

She approached his desk and placed her index fingers on its solid surface. "We got a match on the hairs and DNA sample."

"Great. Who's our guy?"

"Harrold Grizwind, thankfully."

Grissom smiled. "If he really is the killer, it's a shame but… he'll be behind bars, so I take that earlier comment back," he said. This supervisor did not have the annoying journalist on his 'favorites' list either.

"Yes," she giggled. "Carolson is on her way to his apartment with a warrant now."

"Great. Is that all?"

Sara bit her lip and slightly leaned forward, miraculously keeping her weight on her two fingers. "Did something happen at the hospital?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, after I came back to the room with Evelyn. You just got up and left."

"You asked me to watch her, so, I did. Then, when you came back I figured you didn't need me anymore so I left," he shrugged.

His answer appeared honest but she was curious for more. "Did she say something?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"That I shouldn't lower my eyebrows so much," he pointed at his eyebrows, giving his sentence a mocking tone.

This pulled out a few chuckles from Sara as she secretly agreed with the teen's notice. "Well, she got you right with those caterpillars above your eyes."

"Sara, if I weren't a man with a sense of humor, as an entomologist I would've been offended and corrected you that…"

"Your eyebrows do not resemble caterpillars in any way, I know," she nodded and stretched her lips.

"That and she told me she thought I was her father, which I don't know whether that should be a compliment or not," he said and returned his attention briefly to the papers in front of him.

Sara's smile soon faded within the walls of her skin. "Oh."

Hearing the tone, he looked up. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just that… well, Evelyn's father is deceased."

Hearing this, Grissom's lips parted to form a sentence but for a few moments nothing came out. "I didn't know that," he sounded regretful for the earlier lightness he gave to the sentence regarding Evelyn's comment.

"So, it was probably a compliment," she shrugged and pushed herself lightly off the desk.

"The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss," he said and took off his glasses. When he met Sara's face he continued. "Thomas Carlyle."

That sentence must've done something strange, as a swift coat of silence captured every bit of noise in the room, sucking the room dry. The words mirrored the remanding fresh memories in both minds; the string that kept those words together somehow reached inside them, sewing their lips together, not allowing either of them to speak; the invisible paint on each letter added a layer of softness over their eyes; the weighing shadows of those letters locked their bodies in an invisible cage, not allowing them to move, not even their smallest fingers; the meaning ceased their breathing, the harsh reality whispering a sleeper lullaby to their hearts, easing the beats.

Motionless, wordless moments like this were rare for these two people and almost all of them happened when no other soul had been around… like now. Words of someone else, a stranger had to do this to them. Their behavior was normal. Any abnormality had been quickly swept under the carpet not to arouse any awkwardness between them, especially at work. The separation was a quiet, heavy one but with a sort of sweet underlining. They agreed to keep away from anything that might force them back too early or cause some sort of awkward state of oblivion, like now.

One of the shadows weakened and Grissom slowly stood up. There should have been millions of words flying across the room; Sara and Grissom were the kind of people that could always have some sort of a word or sentence to be thrown against the other as a response or lack of. He circled the desk, a move that appeared quick to him but tortuously slow to Sara. Slowly, with his uneven but loveable walk, he approached his colleague and friend.

Three inches; they were separated exactly by three inches. His eyes quickly moved to the hallway to bring a feeling of certainty to the man. It was empty….

The eyes returned to the woman in front of him. A soft, unnoticeable sigh left him as his rational mind was shouting at him to step back. He couldn't. Grissom needed to be near her like this; not work related, not some case… To be close intimately, like this….

"How is Evelyn?" he asked.

"She's um, she's fine. Still shaken up but she'll be ok…."

"Good… You look tired," he noticed.

"I was just worried about her."

"What about yourself?"

"I worry enough for myself."

He stopped there. He preferred the silence. Unusual and uncomfortable it had been in the past… when he was hiding from her, running away… too frightened to act. Now… it was different, it was enjoyable and welcoming just as their intellectual and emotional conversations were. Everything was simple with her, uncomplicated, beautiful. You could describe a good friendship by the countless hours you'd have together and then walk away satisfied due to the contentment of those still, silent moments.

His hand rose up on a breathing distance from her cheek. Her skin proved like a magnet for his palm, dragging it towards her. Grissom hoped she wouldn't move away. He had to do this. He needed to do this. Slowly his fingers touched the soft primal layer of her skin, the softness almost devouring them. His heart smiled. When she remained in the same place, his palm captured her cheek. The touch, the smoothness, the incredible tenderness behind the skin, from the heart sent a warm river to burst from the dam which had been built to keep away the emotions from the past. The river rushed down through him, flowing almost aggressively through every pathway of his body, filling up empty holes and destroying the thorny chambers which were built to forget everything. The warmth increased and kept rising 'til it became hot, scorching everything… reminding him, in a painful but delightful way, how it was… how it still is. She could create a fire to ravage inside him and he could withstand it; she could rip away everything from him and he would survive… because of her. Funny, how it managed to sustain itself - that feeling, that sensation; an enigma as to why it did not vanish.

His hand touched her chin; that perfect, heavenly sculptured chin. His lips have touched it so many times before; even his tongue felt the flawless shape and dreamlike taste of it. Grissom looked at it and drew repetitive lines over it with his fingers. His eyes rose up to see her nose; the thin, seamlessly lined nose which he sometimes felt its tickles against his cheek in a soft, loving manner. The blue eyes finally stopped at their favorite spot – her eyes; window to the soul, indeed. They could tell them everything when her lips would be sealed. They told him many things, revealed many emotions, uncovered little secrets to which they would otherwise be so carefully concealed. Brown and soft, welcoming and alluring; they gave but they also took. Several times they had tricked him into giving away secrets of his own which were supposed to be kept hidden, and several times they helped him express an emotion for which no words were brave enough to be expressed or no motion for his arms to fill.

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer once said, 'The soul that can speak through the eyes can also kiss with a gaze.' If that were true, then Grissom and Sara have kissed million times before, years before their lips ever did.

There was no fear in her eyes now; none of the torture she once went through with the mixed emotions; there was no holding back. She had that ability to capture him, tossing a net around him and then slowly bringing him inside her. Grissom did not struggle because he couldn't; he lacked the strength and the will to break free. But what awaited him only justified his lack of struggle. A pure and rare, safe and warm liquid traveled through him, feeding the thirsty heart and slowly caressing the tender inner walls of his being. She reached him inside and she was delicate. Sara broke nothing, damaged nothing. Her voice with its soft, pastel tone tamed the shivering fears inside which were protected by the thick, steel walls. Her touch destroyed those walls, it ripped away the insecurities. The lack of struggle was justified….

He learned love from her; Grissom learned and felt love with her: From every wonderful, heightened emotion to the lowest, most painful struggles. They taught each other with patience. Grissom was the one that kept asking for more knowledge, however, as he felt new, emotionally illiterate.

"You used to scare the hell out of me," he whispered to her while fighting to form a smile.

"So you told me," she swallowed and gave up on her own attempts for a comforting grin.

His left arm touched her waist. Just like on that wall when he almost captured her with his arms after uttering: "Like this…" to an experiment, a reconstruction of a crime. But he did not pull away quickly then. He waited for her to do that for a reason he could not deconstruct. She did and he stepped back… The moment was broken. Now, they had history; the insecurities passed, what was unknown was now discovered; it felt safer. Grissom's hand slid slowly around the thin waist… what he wanted to do then but couldn't, at least not here in the office. His arm was not long so he brought her closer.

If he would touch her chest now, Grissom would feel the alarming rate with which her heartbeats increased. But how could she be more nervous than him? She couldn't possibly be….

Grissom's will tumbled and he captured her lips. He missed this. It was insane. How can a man miss a woman this much? How can someone that was once running away from the mere thought of a kiss like a helpless victim from the plague, be wanting the taste so badly now?

Unexplained chemistry.

Those kisses could snatch your hearing and leave you deaf, but you wouldn't complain. Why should you? Its right and it's real, that is all which is needed for one person to know; for Grissom to know… and he did.

The taste was sweet; not by some artificial aroma but rather the natural chemical of the flesh, the luring nectar for a bee, not overly sweet or overly bitter; there was a perfect balance to it. The lips were soft, like cushions one would die to be able to lay on. And he was sleeping on them soundly and yet restlessly because he knew eventually it would have to cease… for a while. There was controlled hunger in their kiss. Each wanted more but both were aware that too much was not appropriate for now. A knock on the door confirmed that.

The air rushed between their lips as they were unwillingly separated, cooling them further from the wet residue left by the other. Another kiss was exchanged between their eyes as they kept a firm focus on each other. "That'll be Catherine…" he said and slowly released Sara's body. Even the fabric of her clothing was soft.

She stepped away and both licked their lips to savor the taste, swallowing it down, hoping for it to remain on some of their cells.

"You know, I forgot… I need to do a check on Evelyn… see you, Griss!" Sara grinned as convincingly as she could and turned around to open the door abruptly.

The sudden removal of the door revealed Catherine with her hand on the handle as well. "Whoah, Sara!" She quickly removed her hand and stared at her colleague.

"Ah, sorry, Catherine, I was just updating Grissom on a case," Sara said and rushed passed the blonde.

"Um, ok…" Catherine watched the fast tempo with which Sara moved before turning her head towards the office, and stepped inside. "She seems in a lot of hurry."

"Yeah, well, it is a serial murder case."

"The Red Letters one?" she pointed with her thumb behind her.

Grissom nodded and turned around to circle his desk, and sit back behind it. He smiled at her, hoping she wouldn't be analytical of him today.

"What happened to you?" Catherine asked.

Too late.

"Ah, Sara got a bit emotional over Evelyn's attack."

"I see."

"She's fine now."

"Oh… good. That's good," Catherine crossed her arms and smiled to herself. Friends after all this time but not the most open person, that Grissom….


	8. chapter 8

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

The apartment was empty when the police came inside. It appeared fairly normal: a few pieces of furniture, a home computer with a laptop next to it, shelves with books. No secret dungeons or studies of the occult. Carolson seemed little pleased by this. Having already secured a warrant, she came in the bedroom; once again, nothing out of the ordinary, apart from a copy of the Divine Comedy next to the bed with two folded pages.

Turning around, Carolson then met the door of the room's closet. Opening it, the light from the rest of the room immediately revealed the contents of the tiny space. "Look at this…" she nodded and pulled out her cell phone. "You might want to come down to Grizwind's place…. Oh, yeah. Plenty to see," Carolson said, referring to the two small boxes, two metal cases, some thick notebooks, and four other books.

* * *

"Harold Grizwind had definitely been the right suspect," Nick said as he and Sara observed the objects displayed on the evidence table. "The tools used for the engraving of the letters were found, tucked away in his closet and as you said…" he lifted the small metallic object to show. "An Exacto knife… one of 12."

"Busy."

Nick smiled. "Books on the Kylenear's alphabet, translations… almost 300 pages of translations of The Comedy and 20 more for corrections."

"No life whatsoever," Sara smirked. "And he's missing." Her pager beeped. "What now?" She took it and read the message. "Oh, Paul has hacked Grizwind's computer. This'll be interesting," She said. "You mind if I leave you for a while?"

"Not at all," Nick replied.

* * *

"What did you find?" She approached the young man with longer hair gathered in a tight ponytail.

"Something interesting," he smiled. "Sick but…" and opened a long text file.

Leaning forward, Sara positioned herself in front of the screen and started reading. Her head titled slightly to the left as she blinked several times. "_He thought of them as scum. But still, he positioned them next to these heavenly creatures with a hope that these pathological outcasts of society would find some form of salvation in Heaven…._" She kept reading. After a while, she smirked. "He's been documenting his killings… in a novel."

* * *

Somehow the air was drier for this night. The danger of yet another rainstorm had been shoved aside and instead, a clear sky with brave twinkling stars was presented for the eyes of the would-be viewers beneath it.

But there would not be any curious viewers tonight. They had received a call for another body: nude and 'decorated' with the bloody engravings. The chosen location was with a friendlier feel, unlike the previous ones; perhaps because it happened to be a park.

When Nick arrived at the scene, he did not know what else to say about the site in front of his eyes except sigh. "Well, there goes our suspect." Taking out his flash light, he slowly scanned the displayed piece of 'elegant butchery'.

Harold Grizwind's naked body was found with only his gold chain around his neck, leaning against a tree. The cause of the death appeared obvious after the bullet hole in the forehead had shown that pretty clearly. The engravings here were different, however. The letters weren't written horizontally like in the other victims but vertically instead and in larger size.

Only two minutes later, Sara arrived to examine the scene along with Nick. She did not need to trouble her feet and tire them with an overly long walk; it took her a mere minute and a half to reach the fresh scene. She then stopped next to Nick.

She recognized the victim, but her face showed no sign of emotion at all. She felt satisfied that this sick creep had finally received the same punishment as his 'novel story subjects' but sadly – this, she couldn't eradicate from her mind – she felt displeased as well, that he had escaped the crueler punishment of prison.

She noticed the wound; he had a quick death… it did not seem fair. Grizwind killed three people for his own personal investigation for a 'bestseller' and one of those victims was an innocent young girl. She had witnessed many grieving, heartbreaking displays of parents breaking down in front of her eyes when their child had the misfortune of being a victim to a murder; but when the victim had been this young and sometimes even younger… it would drain emotional strength from the present people and usually even from her. And now, this was the payback that he received. What justice was this?

He would have almost claimed Evelyn as a victim and that had made Sara's blood boil when her solitude allowed; that had been one of the reasons why she did not attend Grizwind's interrogation. She would have been angry.

Here he was under this tree, shot, stripped and unwillingly allowing his body to be displayed as canvas for perhaps another poem. His victims' deaths were slower and much more painful; his was quicker and painless… It did not seem fair. It did not appear right.

Sara took hold of her camera and brought it closer to her face. "Just another case," she told herself and snapped the first photograph.

* * *

The 25th page of the book was turned by her soft fingers while a brief stream of warm air exited through her lips. The hot steam rising from the mug next to her was being blown steadily towards her, enough to pass almost seductively under her nose, enticing her for a sip of the hot liquid. Sara took no interest in it, feeling distracted enough to not give in and taste the liquidized exotic flavor of the coffee. She was waiting for the rolls of film to develop.

Nick, who was sitting at the opposite side of the table allowed his attention to be focused on her for some time, mostly because of the unusual absence of words with Sara that had tonight. "Are you planning on talking any time soon?" he asked her.

"I'm reading, Nick," she responded, her eyes glued to the words on the pages.

"You've been quiet ever since we finished processing the scene."

A superficial smile gave movement to her face when her index finger brushed the lower left angle of the left page. "I can't be chatty every time."

"You were before we got there."

Her eyes finally removed themselves from the contents of the book to look at him. Her observation was brief and she soon returned to her reading. "I was just surprised by it, that's all; didn't think we would find him like that."

"You don't usually go quiet like that," he noted.

"Really," she replied dryly.

"Something bothering you?"

"There are a million things bothering me everyday."

"You don't say."

"I do say."

"So, what's up then?"

"Nothing."

"Something is."

"Nothing is. Stop asking."

"Why?"

"Because I'm reading."

"So?"

"So, doesn't it bother _you_ when someone interrupts you _while_ you're reading? Particularly, a book?"

"Sure it does."

"Then there you go." She threw him a short glance.

"I can still see that something is bothering you. It might help if you talk, y'know," he said.

"Gee… what are you? A shrink all of a sudden?" she mocked, without having to look up.

"No," he smirked. "I'll leave that job to Grissom. He seems to be pretty good at it."

It was tempting to face him after that comment but the only movement that Sara made was the retrieval of her right foot under the chair. "You have no idea," she thought. "Then, no," she told him.

"Ok. In that case, how about confiding in a friend?"

Dropping her hand before her, Sara sighed and finally met Nick's gaze. "There's nothing to confide, Nick. I'm just a little disappointed that Grizwind got out of all this that easily."

Nick cocked his head back. "You call a bullet in your head, and your body being violated and left like that – easy?"

"Yeah! He should've gotten life in prison, not _this_. He didn't even suffer."

"Is this about Evelyn?" he asked. After witnessing her previous immediate change of behavior it certainly wouldn't surprise him.

"No," she lied. "But it sucks when bastards like him don't get what they deserve."

Nick observed her quiet annoyingness and smiled instead of continuing the conversation down the same path. "Now there's the bitchy Sara I know and love."

"I don't bitch."

"Yes, you do. It's not all that fun to listen to it sometimes but hey! It sure is healthier to hear _that_ coming out of you than you being a mute."

She smiled bitterly. "Thanks, Nick."

"You're more than welcome." He sounded satisfied and returned to his own work.

Realizing her friend's motive, she stared at him as a result, almost with amazement.

"You did this on purpose."

Nick jerked his head. "Well, I had to get you talking again, Sara," he said and with an even bigger satisfied smile, returned his attention fully on his own task.

Sara shook her head and returned to her own reading. She wasn't going to inflate his ego even further by admitting his success.

* * *

The next day, Sara arrived at the Presnowitz home, somewhere close to 5 in the afternoon. When the door opened and Grace appeared, she was not pleased by Sara's presence.

"Grace, hi. I'm sorry to bother you, but…"

"Sara, I think Evelyn's work is done there…"

"I know, you told me on the phone. We're close to finishing the case and I just need Evelyn to translate a few words, that's all," Sara said, sounding sympathetic.

Grace shook her head. "I shouldn't have told you about her at all, she wouldn't have gone through this."

"She wasn't attacked 'cause of that. He chose the victims randomly. We, um… found him dead."

"Then you shouldn't need Evelyn any more, should you…" Grace stopped and watched Sara's eyes.

"You're right. But we are worried that who ever killed him might do something like this again. I'm hoping this is the last time I ask for your st-… your daughter's help but right now it is incredibly important that she translates these for us," Sara said and glanced at the folder in her hands.

The younger woman's gaze was an elegant but still pleading one, crushing the little defenses which Mrs. Presnowitz had at that moment; she trusted Sara enough to leave her stepdaughter with this CSI for a night. "Ok," she somehow agreed and opened the door to let Sara inside. After passing the hallway, the two women stopped in front of the stairs. "She's in her room," Grace nodded towards the second floor of the house.

"Thanks," Sara responded quietly and started climbing the stairs.

"Oh, Sara?" Grace called her when Sara was in the middle.

Turning around, Sara looked at the older woman.

"Try not to upset her, alright?" Grace asked.

Sara nodded. "I'll be careful," she responded and flashed a weak smile before continuing upstairs.

Once she reached Evelyn's room, Sara heard a soft melody emerging behind the door. She knocked on the wooden surface. "It's open," Sara heard Evelyn's voice. Opening the door, she then entered the room and found the quiet young girl sitting on her desk with an open book in front of her. "Hey," Sara spoke tenderly.

"Hi." Evelyn placed a few strands of hair behind her ears and stood up.

"How are you doing today?"

"Fine," Evelyn responded.

Pressing her lips tightly before stretching them into a smile, Sara nodded and let her eyes wander across the room. The soft color of blue painted on each wall where two large framed photographs of wolves were placed with each wall having at least two or three; white carpet, bed, and the desk where a glass cage was placed with a tarantula sitting silently inside. "Oh, so you have one as well?" she asked.

Evelyn glanced at her pet. "Yeah, that's Lucy. She was one of my dad's spiders."

Sara approached the cage and bent down to have a closer look at the hairy creature.

"I've heard that females live longer than males."

"They do."

"It's better to be female in their world then," Sara glanced at Evelyn and kept her smile.

"Mm. The whole purpose of a male tarantula's life is to find a mate."

Sara giggled to herself. "Not that different from the human male specimens," she joked and straightened up again.

A tiny line drew itself on Evelyn's left side to attempt a smile. "Yeah, seems so."

"Do you have someone?"

Evelyn continued observing Lucy. "Yeah but it was short, didn't work out."

"Hope it wasn't anything bad."

"No. It's just difficult to find someone that gets you."

"Don't I know it," Sara mumbled.

Evelyn faced her, showing that she did not hear what Sara had said.

"You're right about that," Sara agreed and crossed her arms, tapping the folder gently with her fingers.

Evelyn closed the book. "You're lucky if you have someone that does," she said.

"Indeed."

"How's it like?" Evelyn turned to Sara.

"How's what like?"

"To have someone like that."

"It's, uh, it's great. You feel less alienated from the world. It's a nice feeling."

"Ah."

"Though the way to get to that person at last is a… um… well, putting a cliché here… a rollercoaster ride; quite tricky."

"From experience, the trickier the path to the desired relationship, the longer it'll last."

"Maybe," Sara glanced at the tarantula, feeling a slight diversion instead of replying in another way to Evelyn's words. She went further up to a large photograph above the desk of a pack of wolves: some tearing away skin and flesh and others eating their share of a hunted deer. She observed the photograph for a while without a comment.

Evelyn noticed that. "That's my favorite picture."

Sara felt slightly surprised by that but there was something about the way which the picture had been taken that gave it some strange but appealing beauty. "How come?" she asked anyway.

"Survival… But you know how some pictures evoke certain emotions in you that you have a hard time putting into words?"

"Yep," Sara nodded.

"This is one of them. It's beautiful," Evelyn said and brushed her fingers against the glass frame.

Sara couldn't help but steal a few glimpses of the young girl who was almost enchanted by the photograph which contents could be described as vicious by others.

"You're quite taken by wolves, then; from what I see on your walls."

Evelyn nodded and scratched her nose.

"So this is why you want to study biology?"

"Part of it."

"Ok…"

"I also have a dog. You'll see her later. I don't want her to be around Lucy as she's still young."

"Thank you," Sara smiled and unfolded her arms. "Um, Evelyn. I need your assistance with a few translations," she said and opened the folder.

Evelyn did not say anything but simply watched the open folder being placed on the desk.

"Is it ok?" Sara asked cautiously.

"Sure," Evelyn responded and took the photograph in her hands. "This is the man that attacked me?" Her voice was flat, drained from any emotion for the dead person shown on that print.

"Yes," Sara replied and watched Evelyn's reaction. But there wasn't any. Not even previous anger or perhaps even relief.

"He didn't suffer… Why didn't he suffer?" No emotion was necessary for those words.

"I wondered the same," Sara told herself.

"Why was he doing this?"

"He… um, he was using the killings to form a story for his novel."

Evelyn's eyes escaped the photograph to stare at Sara. "He was killing people for a story?"

Sara nodded, feeling uncomfortable admitting that. "Well, he was journalist," she shrugged, trying to smile but without success.

Returning her gaze to the dead body, she sighed. "Human nature can be disgusting," she said repulsively.

"Something which I see everyday," Sara admitted. The evidence of such displays could be overwhelming at times not only for her but for everyone else having to witness that much too often.

"I feel sorry for you… and Mr. Grissom," Evelyn then said, knowing that this would surprise Sara who had probably been caring for Evelyn with pity as well.

"You might be surprised but some people think of us as being brave."

"For the spilled guts, blood and other stuff of that nature?"

"Yep."

"Yeah, you must be." Evelyn observed the contents for only five seconds and then moved onto the others. "There's just one word. It's repeated through out the… body," she said.

"And that is…?"

"Murderer," Evelyn said and placed the photograph back in its place.

"It's just that? Nothing else?"

"Nothing else," Evelyn replied and turned around to walk towards the closet.

"Alright." Sara took the folder back. "Thanks, Evelyn."

"You're welcome." Evelyn took the two red t-shirts from the bed and began folding them.

Sara's eyes then accidentally stopped at the framed photograph next to the bed. She approached it. "Is this your dad?" she asked.

"Yeah."

Sara did not know whether to be stunned or not by the resemblance of this man and Grissom. If only the eyes did not have the color of brown and his hair was lighter, George Presnowitz could be Gil Grissom's twin. The understanding of Evelyn's strange reaction around him suddenly grew. "You really loved your dad, didn't you?" she nearly whispered.

"I did." Evelyn held the folded t-shirts in her arms, looking at the photograph on the other side of the bed. "It is a shame that Mr. Grissom doesn't have any children. If he's as kind as my dad was… he would've been a great father," she said and turned around to open the closet door.

Sara looked over at her. "_Must be hard to encounter someone that reminds you of a person who's is buried so deep inside your heart that you can't let go_," she wanted to say out loud but decided to keep them inside instead.

"He is a kind person… isn't he?" Evelyn closed the door and returned her eyes on Sara.

"Yeah," Sara smiled widely but keeping a good amount of control over it as to not appear as some hyped young kid. "He's one of the kindest people you could ever meet in this world," she said wistfully.

Evelyn's smile appeared at long last, but it was a sad one. "I thought I'd almost gotten a second chance when I saw him…" She brought her hand beneath her nose, contemplating for a while and allowing no safe passage for a tearful liquid to be released. "Are you two close?" she asked, almost optimistically.

"In a way."

"That's nice. You're lucky," she spoke quietly and turned off the small stereo.

"You know, Grissom also majored in Biology."

"Did he?" There was tiny spark of hope in the girl's eyes as a result of Sara's words.

"Yep. He was a geek… well, still is but a more mature one, so to speak," Sara joked.

Evelyn smiled briefly, taking in the humor from Sara. "Wanna see Cherry?"

"Your dog?"

"Yes."

"Sure," Sara agreed and followed Evelyn downstairs.

When they came into the back garden, the white-furred animal approached Evelyn. "We have a guest," Evelyn told her. Cherry's curiosity then brought her to Sara, gathering the invisible scent from the visitor, trying to determine whether it had been a friendlier one or not. When the former was confirmed, Cherry barked quietly one time and continued wagging her tail.

"Hey, Cherry," Sara smiled and kneeled down next to the dog. Patting Cherry's head and scratching her ears, Sara then asked: "She's a beautiful dog."

"Yeah… does Mr. Grissom like dogs?"

Sara glanced at the teen. "He does," she replied.

A shy smile twinkled upon Evelyn's face for a while before she placed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "Was he mad at me when I came to his office again?"

Sara's entire face then turned to Evelyn, when she sensed the girl's low feeling of guilt. Grissom hadn't told her about that. "Um, no. He's not, Evelyn, don't worry," she reassured her.

"Ok…" Waiting for Sara's attention to return to Cherry, she then said: "I saw a picture of you two."

Sara's face met Evelyn's once more, guessing that perhaps she had seen the photograph of her and Grissom by the bed.

"The sunset really matched the feeling in the picture," Evelyn said.

Sunset? That hadn't been Sara's picture. Which one did Evelyn see? Sara felt puzzled. "Where did you see it?"

Evelyn looked at the side, realizing that that had been something she shouldn't have mentioned. "In Mr. Grissom's drawer." She then faced Sara again. "It was a really nice one, too," she nodded.

Sara smiled gently and looked at Cherry. "Was it framed?" she asked.

"No," Evelyn replied.

"Sweet," Sara thought and patted Cherry's head again. It must've been Japan….


	9. chapter 9

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

Sara poured herself some coffee back at the station and then sat down on the chair. The thoughts from her last visit would have started swirling around in her head had it not been for the unexpected entrance by Grissom.

He appeared to not have noticed Sara, which only gave her free space to absorb more of the resemblance from her earlier witnessing of the picture in Evelyn's room. The hair, the glasses, the shape of the face and even some lines on it… Sara sighed to herself; too many similarities.

After filling up his cup, Grissom turned around, noticing Sara sitting down on one of the chairs. "Hey," he said and took a sip of his coffee. "I didn't see you," and swallowed entirely. He then would have continued on with his work, but Sara's bewildered and faintly sad facial expression prevented him from going anywhere. His head shook slightly. "What?" he asked.

"It's unbelievable," she replied quietly.

"What is?"

"Your face."

"What about it?"

"You look just like him, Griss," she said.

"Like who?"

"Evelyn's dad."

Her reply elevated his chin higher before he lowered his head slowly down while his eyes remained firmly on Sara. "How?" he shook his head in puzzlement and opened his arms.

"There was a picture in her room. I swear, if he only had blue eyes… I wouldn't know whether it had been you in it."

The beginning lines of his eyebrows pressed down, as he tilted his head and approached her silently. "He looked like me," he repeated one of her sentences in disbelief.

"Yeah," she said and formed a stronger grip of the cup's handle.

"What, he had the same hair…"

"No, everything except for the eyes; his smile was probably a bit wider than yours but…" her mouth remained opened while her head moved to one direction to the other and her eyes refusing to leave his. "It was… unbelievable."

Grissom smirked. "That's impossible."

"I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't see what I saw…. You sure there's not some long lost relative out there, a brother maybe?"

Taken aback by her sudden question, Grissom narrowed his eyes once more. "Uh… no?" and slightly tilted his head.

"Half-brother?" she tried again.

"Why are you asking this?"

"The ridiculous likeness."

He watched her with serious doubt still and looked down at his coffee; another smirk. "It needs more sugar," he said and turned around. "Everyone has a doppelganger, Sara. But, not in this case."

Sara's eye tightened as she followed him walking away. "So… you don't have any identical twins out there from your bloodline?" she smiled shortly.

"No, thank goodness for that," he said and after dipping a spoon with some brown sugar in the hot coffee, turned around to face her.

Watching him take another sip of the coffee, Sara placed her cup on the table and leaned forward. "Ok, well…" she spoke quietly and looked at her hands. "I better see if Nick had any luck with any prints," she said and stood up. This would turn into an uncomfortable conversation anyway. She was two feet away from the door when she stopped suddenly and turned around to look at him. Sara waited until she was certain Grissom was observing her and then said: "I'm not asking you to play babysitter with her, Gil… just, seeing the reason for her awkward behaviors around you… please don't be icy with her?" She then turned around and walked out of the room.

His eyes were on her as much as they were allowed before she vanished from his sight. When her presence was gone, Grissom returned his gaze before him and took another sip from the coffee. He hadn't been that way with Evelyn at all, but if he had given the teen that impression, some nasty little feeling of guilt passed quickly through him. He sighed. "He looked just like you," echoed in his mind for a few brief seconds; that could certainly explain Evelyn's repeated presence in his office, the graceless calling of a parent's name…. Another sigh came out. This would be difficult. Grissom shook his head slightly and then exited the room.

* * *

"So, the bullet inside Grizwind's head belonged to a handgun 44. Caliber, registered to… him." Sara sat on the stool next to Nick.

"Killed with his own gun, stripped naked and carved… what a way to die." Nick.

"Our guy got a similar treatment as his victims."

"Yeah. Can you believe, he actually intended on killing 101 victims? One for each poem?"

"Insane. He would've been caught by then anyway."

"He sure did a good job translating the Divine Comedy; the language being quite… difficult."

"Smart enough to do the translation and to effectively relieve the bodies of any other traces, except for the obvious abrasions; but, _not_ smart enough to keep his hair in check."

"Not to mention whoever he's managed to piss off by the killings. Someone that knew it was him."

"Yeah."

"So, the monsters are out of the picture then."

Sara's eyes slowly diverted themselves to his by this sentence.

"Your quote?" he reminded her.

"We still don't know what was in that head of his… beside what he wrote in the file. The character… um, Sam? Doesn't really describe his mental state, not that it's our job or anything..."

"Try a quiet psychopath?"

"That's quite general, Nick."

"But makes you think… It is usually the quiet ones, isn't it?"

"Oh, come on."

"Don't kill the fun in speculating, Sara," he said.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Sara replied and brought the photographs of Grizwind's knees closer to have a better look.

Nick took a glimpse of her and smirked. "Psychopath killers… hmm… Who knows what lies beneath your surface and Grissom's?"

"A deranged nature, just waiting for the right moment to be released?" She glanced at him.

"People have it. You quiet types especially," he teased.

"Doesn't that resemble prejudice? And for the record, I'm not exactly _that_ quiet."

"Just wondering what might trigger it…" he kept going.

Sara lowered the photographs. "Well, the moment I pull a butcher's knife on you, you'll know," she teased back calmly and turned her attention to the photograph in her left hand.

"Yikes," he said and smiled.

Instead of saying anything, Sara only smiled back and focused further on the photograph contents.

"He didn't use the poem for some point to make. Someone else might have done that… something political, or religious… Grizwind," Nick shrugged. "For a story… a _novel_. Pretty stupid."

"He was toying with us. He wanted to see how 'smart' we actually were."

"Another one of those…. Definitely no life."

"Definitely. And since we didn't find the gun…"

"We found a print."

"On what?"

"On his chain, and it ain't Grizwind's."

"Who's then?"

Nick pointed at the screen of the matching fingerprints.

Sara smiled. "Who would've thought it'd end up being this easy…"

He chuckled. "I know. Also, Grizwind's address book," Nick said and took the black opened book.

Sara took a look at the scribbled initials. "T. L. … and a number. Connection?" she glanced up at Nick.

"Could be." He shrugged.

* * *

Having finished the final analysis, Sara came into the hallway, with the intention to exit the building when she noticed Evelyn standing close to the doors with a folded jacket between her arms, staring oddly at the blonde woman who walked away from her. Soon after Catherine left, Sara approached Evelyn. "Hey, you," she greeted her gently.

"Hi," Evelyn replied and quickly placed a strain of hair behind her ear. She gave a quick glance at Catherine's direction and shrugged, bringing the jacket closer to her.

"Had a nice chat with Catherine?"

"Um, no." Evelyn came closer to Sara. "She scared me," she whispered.

"Scared you?" Sara's lips formed and amusing smile.

"Yeah, her um," Evelyn pointed with her index finger on her face. "Her face, it seemed unnatural, the lines… her eyes," she shuddered inconspicuously. "They were frightening."

From Evelyn's body language, Sara could tell how uneasy Evelyn was feeling with saying this. The CSI however, found her responses amusing in a sweet way. "She's alright."

"I know but…" Evelyn sighed. "I'm sorry… I just have this weird habit of getting impressions about faces and characters… it's… silly."

"Actually, it's amusing," Sara admitted.

Evelyn lowered her head in slight embarrassment. "I just came to bring you your pen back," she said and pulled out a red pen from her rucksack. "You forgot it in my room."

"Oh, thanks," Sara smiled and took the small object. She looked at Evelyn and not letting her smile disappear she then asked: "You want to see Grissom?" Sara felt as if she were offering a child to see their favorite pet.

Evelyn didn't say anything, only looked back at Sara.

"Well," Sara looked at her watch. "Shift's over in about five minutes so…"

"Ah, no. I just came to give you that," Evelyn responded.

"Ok… how about I walk you out then?" Sara offered.

Evelyn shrugged and along with Sara walked out of the building. Walking silently in this colder Vegas night, both young women spoke nothing for a while. Evelyn unfolded her jacket and quickly put it on her. "I'm sorry if I caused any awkwardness," she then said.

"You didn't, Evelyn. Don't worry," Sara assured her and took a thick part of Evelyn's hair that had remained inside the jacket; taking it out, Sara placed the majority of it in front, on the girl's chest. "It's quite nice," she complemented her.

"Thanks."

"Going anywhere for the summer?"

"Yeah. My mum's taking me to Ireland to see my cousin. She thinks it'll be good for me."

"Could be." With everything this girl had been through, some time away from this hectic city would be good therapy for her.

"She didn't say it but I think she's just scared of anything more happening to me until the semester starts."

"Can't really blame her."

"Maybe."

Their conversation was then interrupted when their attention was drawn over to Grissom who had just exited the building, whilst looking for something in his bag.

Sara then turned to say something to Evelyn, but the teenager suddenly and swiftly distanced herself from Sara and started heading towards Grissom's direction. "Uh, Evelyn?" Sara tried to call her but Evelyn didn't respond. Crossing her arms, Sara decided to remain in her place and observe the following events.

"Mr. Grissom?" Evelyn managed to reach him before Grissom approached his vehicle.

Noticing her, Grissom stopped. "Hi, Evelyn," he smiled softly at her.

Evelyn suddenly froze; her mouth opened; she wanted to speak out something but nothing came out.

Grissom's head lowered slightly, anticipating the girl's sentence, whatever that might be. "Yes?"

"I… uh, I just," she quickly opened one of the pockets of her rucksack and pulled out a tiny circular-shaped pin. "I, um… I bought this six years ago for my dad. He would've loved it, but since I never got the chance to give it to him…" she brought the pin closer to him. "Would you like to have it?"

Grissom looked at the silvery object. "If this was intended for your father… I don't think it's my place to take it," he said and looked at Evelyn.

"No, Mr. Grissom… I have enough memories of my father. Please… please take it?" her voice appeared pleading, giving a quick shiver to the hand that held the pin.

Noticing the shivering, Grissom's eyes then traveled over to the young girl. The muscles, the few which she had that were visible, were constraining; a small lump rolled down from her mouth to the bottom of her throat, making a wavy disturbance of her skin. "Please?" he heard her ask once again. It did not appear right to accept this gift for many reasons; one of those reasons being that Evelyn barely knew him for this; but those memories… "_This poor girl_…." he thought and sighed. Reaching out, he took the pin and adjusted it on his palm to have a better observation view of it. The motive of the object had actually been a smaller-knitted web with a petite spider on its left side and on its upper right side was a scrunched model of a fly, captured by the trap; quite imaginative… "Einstein said that: _Imagination is more important than knowledge_." He then smiled kindly. "You chose this?"

Evelyn nodded. Her heart had skipped quite a few beats, as she waited to see whether he would accept this present or refuse it. She was nervous, and her body gave that away so easily; Evelyn never had the most stable hands. When the former reaction of acceptance came to life, a watery feeling washed over her.

"It's interesting. Very pretty," he said and glanced over at Evelyn long enough for her to be assured that her gift was a welcomed one.

Evelyn smiled tenderly. "A person without imagination or love is a dead one… right?"

"Quite true," he said and placed the pin in the pocket of his shirt; tapping that place twice with his hand. "Thank you," he told her and this time the sweet wrinkles next to his eyes smiled along with it.

Evelyn gave a single wave and then turned to leave when Grissom called her again.

"Do you like wolves, Evelyn?" he asked her.

Surprised, she turned around once again, this time to look at him. How did he know? "Yeah…"

"Good," he said and placed his hand in his briefcase. While searching for something, Grissom took a glimpse of Sara in the distance who had remained in her spot, watching them; he sent her a knowing smile. Shortly after, he pulled out a dark blue book and looked at it. "A friend of mine wrote this book about genetics and wolves. It comprehends general details but, I think you might find it useful."

Seeing the offered book, Evelyn did not take any action to accept it; she only threw an embarrassing look at him.

"Well?"

"No," she shook her head.

"Why not?"

"It might not feel right."

"You gave me your pin."

"But it was a gift."

"So is this."

She caught the book with her eyes. She wanted it but she tried hard not to appear too needy. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. Please?" he tried her approach.

"Ok. But…"

"You'll need it more than I ever will," he assured her.

That appeared enough for her to finally take the book. "Thanks," she smiled, gripping the book as if it had been the most precious thing in the world.

"You're very welcome."

"Bye, Mr. Grissom," she said and holding the book tightly to her chest, she walked away from Grissom.

Watching her leave, Grissom then glanced at Sara once again; she appeared both pleased and slightly surprised by his gesture; her smile certainly confirmed that. He returned her expression in his own discrete way.

"Want me to drive you home?" Sara offered.

"Yes, thanks," Evelyn agreed.

* * *

While driving, Sara glanced over at Evelyn. Unwillingly perhaps, her eyes wandered over to the bruises on her neck; they were old but they appeared fresh; the hand that held a firm grip on the book was also violated by the ugly marks of the attack.

They stopped at a red light. Evelyn's face was then nicely lit by the glaring streetlight as she hadn't said a single word since they sat in the car; she was calm as always and silent.

"How is your mum?" Sara asked.

"She's ok. She's already deciding what to bring on the trip," Evelyn responded.

The light turned green and the drive continued. "What's that book about?"

"Wolves… I don't know how Mr. Grissom knew that…"

Sara's lips stretched an inch. She knew. "So you two exchanged gifts then?"

"Yeah, guess so."

"What was your gift?" The conversation was willing to continue, even though Sara could have easily asked Grissom about that later.

"A silver pin. I wanted to give it to my dad for his birthday but…" her head lowered while a devastatingly sad sigh finished the rest of her sentence.

"I understand…" Sara told her softly and placed her hand on Evelyn's forearm, squeezing it gently.

"I hope he liked it."

"Did he say he did?"

"Yes, but, I hope he wasn't saying that just to be nice."

"He wasn't. He's not like that." Sara could imagine how difficult it must've been to accept Evelyn's gift without breaking the girl's heart.

"Sara…" Evelyn then called her.

"Mm?"

"I…" a slight hesitation was embraced by a thicker sigh. "I'm sorry that I blamed you like that for not doing enough in finding Laney's killers."

"No need to apologize, Evelyn," Sara told her.

"I just didn't know… I'm sure you did everything possible for her and I appreciate that. You caught the three that did the slaughter… that's doing a lot. Laney would be grateful."

Evelyn's words hurried inside Sara, digging up a few old memories, and the girl's soft tone caressed her brain enough to allow a few tears to wait behind her eyes. "I hope so. I hope she's in a good place." As a scientist, this sentence seemed strange but the compassion did not allow it to be.

"Maybe she's met my dad…" Evelyn said and looked through the window.

"Maybe she has." Sara looked at her. Although strange, in some way it felt better that Evelyn was blaming her no longer.

"Maybe your friend, too."

Sara wished to smile and for a few brief seconds she did. "Yeah." She then took a right turn with the car. "Evelyn… did your father have a brother?"

"No, he was an only child. But he was from my grandfather's second wife… I don't know if my grandfather had any other children."

Sara glanced at her. "Did you know your grandfather?"

"No, never met him."

"How come?"

"My dad didn't talk much about him. I don't think he wanted me to meet him. When I heard that he died, my mum told me that dad's death deteriorated his health even more. It was hard on him."

"Yeah… it must've been…" Sara said. Her thoughts briefly subdued to Evelyn's earlier sentence. "Coincidence, maybe," she thought.

Two minutes later, they arrived in front of Evelyn's home. "Thank you for taking care of me these few weeks…" Evelyn then said, rather unexpectedly.

Sara turned to face her. "Thank you for helping us on the case," she told Evelyn.

A small smile appeared on Evelyn's face. "Could you thank Mr. Grissom again from me for the book?"

"I will."

Evelyn looked over at her. The softness in her browns increased to a fragile level. "Did you know that friends… those of the genuine kind, are angels sent by God to look after us?" Her tone calm but indecorously matching her stare.

"I'm still a friend if you need me to be, Evelyn," Sara told her, touched by the teen's gratitude. It was then that she saw an unexpected tear fall on the girl's cheek. "Hey…" It had been the first time she had heard a sob like this from Evelyn.

Evelyn then departed from Sara to open the door. "I'll be ok. I just miss having something good happening…" she said and exited the car.

"Evelyn?" Sara called her. "You have my telephone number. Why don't you give me a call in a few months to tell me how your studies are going?"

"I will," Evelyn responded and wiped away the two large tears with her hand before closing the door. "Bye," she waived and rushed towards the door of her home.

"Bye, Evelyn…" Sara whispered while Evelyn approached her house. She started the engine again, when a gelatinous mixture of feelings started brewing inside her. It would be good to go home now.


	10. chapter 10

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

* * *

"So, Tracy… you knew Harold Grizwind?" Sara asked.

"We had an affair," the young woman replied.

"You wouldn't happen to have his handgun, would you?" detective Carolson asked.

"Why?"

"Because it was missing and he was shot with it."

"And how did you find out about me?"

"We found the initials 'T. L.' and a phone number scribbled in his address book."

"Is that why I am here?"

"Your fingerprint told us you were with him that night."

"Just my fingerprint." Tracy leaned back on her chair.

"Can I see your hands please?" Sara asked.

Tracy glanced at Sara; she lowered her hands, hiding them beneath the table, giving them her response.

"If you refuse, it only makes you look guilty," Carolson told her.

"I'm half way there since you called me down here," Tracy replied and looked down. She sat quietly there, staring at her lap, away from the view of the others. "He killed my best friend and humiliated her even after she was dead. He used her for some sick exposition of his and I never even knew about that."

"So, you killed him. As a revenge for Keisha," Carolson continued.

Tracy did not speak but only turned her head, visibly showing her guilt.

"How did you know the word that you engraved on his body?" Sara asked.

"I took a sample from his translations, on the day I found out that he killed her."

"You could've reported him to the police," Sara said.

Tracy shook her head. "He got what he deserved. He would've killed more people and you would've had no clue that it was him," her eyes nearly pierced through Sara's as there appeared to be no remorse for the man. "I'm sure you've read his little novel. It's interesting reading, isn't it? He was making fun of your inability to catch a murder like that."

"We would've caught him eventually," Carolson said and stood up to circle the table and stand behind the accused. Taking her arms behind her back, Carolson slowly lifted Tracy from the stool, ready to cuff her.

"You don't know how it's like to lose someone that you love so much by someone that you think you might have something so special with," Tracy said to Sara before Carolson ushered her out of the room.

Sara watched them leave and glanced at her hands. Tracy murdered Harold Grizwind to avenge her friend's murder but she chose a wrong way to do it. "Human nature can really be screwed up," she told her self and stood up.

_Case closed. _

* * *

Pressing the 'forward' button on the remote, Grissom leaned back on the couch, and with his hand in a loose fist, brought his face upon it to lean on. He then stopped the video footage on the smiling young woman, gazing forward at something not yet caught by the camera. The wind grew stronger, forcing Sara to gather her hair behind her ears constantly, as few quite stubborn, strains kept brushing against her face and even as close to her as the eyes. "Oh, look at that!" she pointed in front of her but the camera did not register it. Her face turned, she noticed the unchanged position. "Not me, Gil! Turn the camera!" her voice louder because of the sound-distorting wind. "This is rare beauty! Come on!"

A quiet chuckle was heard. "So are you," his voice echoed behind the camera.

The brief moment of flattery shown on her face with an added absence of words could have easily been missed by some casual viewer of this footage; for Grissom though, those two seconds were two minutes. The right side of her lips stretched further up and stayed there for those two sluggish seconds especially for him, before returning to her childlike excitement. "Gil, you're missing it!" she insisted, and as the camera-holder appeared hesitant to move the electronic device, Sara turned it to the right side herself. Soon after, a beautiful, green landscape decorated the screen, captured on video.

Grissom smiled gently to this and sighed. It would have been pathetic to admit this to anyone or even himself, but he had watched this vacation video of their stay in Japan more times than he could actually remember. The memories from that stay and everything that came with it were locked up securely in his mind, bolded so it could never be lost; but despite that, he liked to visualize some of those memories in this way as well.

Grissom thought he had imagined it but fortunately he did not. Sara was glowing here. She was smiling; she was excited; she was a fourteen year-old. Some brief holidays in the past had contributed to the pleasant mood for both of them, individually, but nothing like this. Had it been the spirit of the place, the millions of miles separating them from the decaying corpses and daily doses of human insanity, the rare chance to breathe easily by yourself? Or had it been the simple enjoyment that emerged from their company; with no other disturbances but themselves? Whatever it might have been, the result was this: the growing radiance from her face.

He did not regret reaching out and stealing a few kisses from her in his office; Grissom was thankful that he did; he certainly needed it.

They both were workaholics but Grissom was more than merely surprised by the sudden release which this enchanting place had brought them. The language was not a problem as he had done almost all of the communicating with the people living there. It was also genuinely sweet when Sara insisted on learning a few Japanese words of her own. God bless her for always being a fast and eager learner.

It had appeared frightening learning that she happened to mirror him in so many ways that once might even call it ridiculous. Their hearts worked well together because they were in love; their minds worked well together because… they were in love. Their souls touched and kissed. The soul mates finally met in a way that they were supposed to: in love. Exquisitely beautiful indeed….

Pressing the 'forward' button once again, five seconds passed before he released it. He chuckled softly when an image of a wet Sara Sidle was shown on the screen. "No, don't tape this!" she warned while trying to squeeze out the remaining large drops of water from her hair. She had accidentally fallen in a lake earlier and as much as the sight was a funny one, she endured a few minutes of being recorded on the disk after she was 'rescued' by her companion. A terrible attempt from Grissom to hide his growing chuckles that was heard behind the image, tested Sara's patience who unbelievably was struggling herself not to explode in nonsensical laughter. "Gil, I'm serious! I don't want any record of this… Period!" she warned again but this time Grissom's mouth could not keep itself closed anymore and his chuckles transformed into louder, full-blown laughter.

There would be no attempt of murder this time as his laughter punctured Sara's bubble that kept her giggles intact, and soon the beautiful sounds of vocal silliness escaped her. "St-op…" she tried. Then the video stopped. Grissom had turned off the camera, and he slightly shook his head; he had approached Sara. She stood there in her wet clothes that appeared to be slickly attached to her limbs, and her hair stuck together in thicker strains gave her a sort of a defenseless image.

"You are unbelievably lucky that it's hot out here right now," he told her while his laughter turned into a more tamable sort.

"Well, it could not be worse me catching pneumonia than you having immortalized me like this on tape," she told him, though her voice hinted more to a pleased tone rather than an embarrassed one.

"You're more than welcome, honey," he said softly and wrapped his arms around her upper body, gathering her closer to him. His cheeks then felt her wet palms while his eyes witnessed hers dancing steadily to the rhythm of her quiet giggles.

"You dare show this to anyone, _especially_ at the lab… the best CSIs in the world won't discover who did it when they find you in a little black bag," she said.

"Unfortunately it's not as interesting as you trying out karaoke," he teased.

"Unlucky for you, your attempts for me to actually stand up there and sing to some cheesy music, failed!"

"Shame, such a shame," he said and watched her face lower itself to retreat to the pit of shyness for a few moments along with her hands. His right hand then touched the edge of her chin higher enough for his lips to taste the wet surface of hers; their warm breaths heating up the previously colder, much colder liquid; their giggles and chuckles surrendering within the walls of their mouths.

"Despite my soaking condition right now, I'm loving this," she whispered and kissed him.

Grissom smiled softly once again. "So am I," he responded and kissed her one more time before he placed his right arm around her. "Let's get you dried up," he said, and both started walking with a few last chuckles behind them.

As the two blissful people walked away from the view of his mind, so did a nostalgic sigh enter the room from his lips. Leaning his body slowly to the left, Grissom soon found himself trying to stretch out on the couch but sadly the space did not appear big enough. He did, however manage to lie still for a few minutes with his thumb on his forehead and his eyes aloofly on the ceiling. Those two weeks in Japan were a confusingly gorgeous mixture of reality and fantasy… surreal enough to give in to, and real enough to be embedded onto the memory cells of his brain. How he missed it; how he missed her….

* * *

Sara increased the tone of the picture to hear the people in the video better. "Is this good?" a male voice was heard behind the camera. "It's great, thanks," Sara nodded and wrapped her arms around Grissom's waist. They had stopped a passing person to film a short footage of them in front of the Kegon Falls in Nikko, Japan. Hearing of its beauty, they had decided to visit the site. When they arrived, both were truly taken away by the height of the falls and the green surroundings that surpassed their expectations. The force of the falling water took their breaths away, and the nature made them conclude that the popularity of this place had indeed been justified.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Grissom then spoke as he glanced behind them.

"Yeah, pretty amazing," Sara replied with admiration.

"Care for a swim?" he teased.

"Um, no," she shook her head.

"Ok, I'll throw you in then."

Sara giggled. "Yeah, like as if you could actually do that," she mocked.

An eyebrow was lifted as he observed her teasing reaction. "You think I can't?"

"Seriously, Gil," she brushed her index finger playfully against the back of his left ear.

"You really think I can't do it?" his tone was becoming solidly serious that it even gave Sara a problem with trying to recognize whether he was joking or being indeed serious.

Sara glanced behind her. "Uh, yeah… I really do," she nodded and shrugged.

"Alright," he said and caught Sara's waist unexpectedly.

"Hey! What th-… Griss? What…" she struggled to free herself. "No." she shook her head. "Don't do it. It's illegal! Stop!" she couldn't stop giggling.

"Well, you didn't believe me, so…"

"Fine! I believe you!"

"You don't sound convincing."

"I do, Gil! Now _please_ let go of me!"

"No more doubts?"

"No more doubts," she repeated.

Requiring the confirmation from her eyes as well, he observed them thoroughly to see if they matched the honesty of the words. "Ok, Miss Sidle." He then carefully allowed her to free herself properly.

Sara giggled to this when her legs found a more comfortable position on the couch. What that vacation had revealed about them…. She was glad he kissed her in his office.

She pressed the 'forward' button a couple of minutes further on, and stopped at a picture of a lovely sunset taken from a hotel balcony. "You're still filming?"

Grissom's voice was heard. "I thought that was my job here."

"I like this," she said referring to the burning sky.

He had joined her that day on the balcony after an exhausting tour of the city; her right ear felt his warm breath before he said: "How long have you been filming?" he asked her.

"Only a couple of minutes," she replied and suddenly turned around to capture his face in an enormous close-up. "I think the camera likes you," she said, smiling.

Instead of saying anything, Grissom took the object away from Sara's hands and turned it off.

"Hey! I'm not done with that!" she protested weakly.

"I think you've had enough for today," he said with a seductive smile, and then looked at her before placing the digital video camera on the near by table.

"That's not fair you know. You had that thing in your possession much longer than I have."

He shrugged and trapped her between himself and the fence with his arms on each side. "As much as Japan is breathtaking… I need you more to myself," he said.

"Don't you already have me?"

"You've focused a lot of your attention to the places we've been."

"Well, it is my first time here."

"Still…" he said softly and brought his face closer to hers, gazing at her lips.

Instead of complying, Sara distanced her face. "You're jealous?" she guessed.

"Maybe," he replied and reduced the distance between them before finally squeezing out the last inch and capturing her lips.

"How can…" she already felt his lips. "…mmm… " Sara gave into the kiss for a minute before tearing her lips away to gasp for air. "How can you be jealous of an entire country?" she smiled.

"I can; when that country happens to be lavished by my sweetheart's attention."

Sara giggled. "Well, not to worry Mr. Grissom. Japan and I have no plans to elope as of yet," she said and kissed his nose.

"Good. Because I would really have trouble letting go of you," he said and captured her lips once again.

Pressing the 'stop' button, Sara threw the remote towards the available free space of the couch and then stretched further out on the soft cushions like a lazy old cat.

Now, when she would watch this for the thousandth time, it only increased a never abandoning reminder: she missed Grissom… the separation appeared more bad than good….

* * *

He had abandoned the couch as the space was far too small and uncomfortable for him. With slow and tired steps, Grissom made his way to the other part of his living quarters – the bedroom.

The sun appeared vicious this time of this particular day. Its pointy rays, like spikes, pierced through the easily penetrable windows before splashing down on the gray surface of the sheets, with no intention of disappearing any time soon. His blue eyes followed those rays with the same speed as the thoughts circled through his head, whilst digging out some carefully polished memories. Carefully polished because due to their value, Grissom could not let them be forgotten, and sit in the back storage rooms of his mind, gathering direful dust.

Stepping closer to the bed, Grissom then pulled out his hand and opening it slowly, he placed it beneath one of the sun's rays, letting the soft tissue of his palm absorb the incredibly rich and intense warmth. If the streak of light had dared to become any warmer, it could easily drill through the delicate structure of his hand, burning it. Fortunately though, its warmth was sufficient enough to increase the temperature of his hand until he felt satisfied. Grissom slowly rotated his hand until its back was now the ending destination for the ray. This had been natural, unspoiled warmth, reminding him of Sara's natural… feminine warmth.

Slowly, he withdrew his hand and allowed his gaze to travel on the bed's surface as the memories finally materialized enough and came to life here, in this room. Her beautifully structured body lying here, as Grissom moved his arm to the left side of the bed to touch it, with only one thin sheet that exposed each line perfectly if observed from above. Her brown locks shoved recklessly behind her as if her owner had no care for them at that moment, probably because how she felt had been something different, something most enjoyable which she did not wish to blemish. A soft moan escaped her; one of a very quiet, intimate nature, but for his ears it had been loud and yet very much personal.

Grissom sat on the bed delicately enough as to not cause any unnecessary vibrations to the surface that might wake Sara up. Her body, her face were turned to the side while facing him. Her eyes were closed; she must have been dreaming. Oh, how surreal this was; how brilliantly surreal. His eyes moved up, then down, observing every possible inch of this rarity. The morning after their first night of love making and she slept here, in his bed, undressed, exposed with everything but her eyes. He had awoken much earlier than her, and Grissom used that preciously earlier start to capture her entirely in this way and keep his findings only to himself, deeper down. Just to see how all this looked like.

Her head moved deeper into the pillow to supply itself with more comfort. Another satisfied and unbelievably quiet moan was heard from her; but it sounded like an enjoyable moan. Perhaps some memories from the earlier hours had managed to creep into her dreams and she was responding to them… at least, that's what he had hoped. Grissom hoped that possibly, if luck was smiling, she could be dreaming about him?

He sighed. Grissom would feel fortunate and even honored if that had been so. A place in her dreams; her subconscious allowing him to be present there. He had enjoyed their first physically intimate night together; he enjoyed it tremendously; so much that it even surprised him. That was why it had been a beautiful night; the care was there, it wasn't only physical pleasure but emotional as well. Of all his previous sexual experiences, this one was new and unique… the feelings made it that way.

She was a great lover and a very generous one. She gave him a velvety sense of confidence and the freedom to physically express the feelings within him; and she managed it in a selfless, patient manner. With each movement, slow or quick, each turn, each arch; creating shapes, painting the surface of the bed with the falling drops of pleasurable sweat; and the combination of gasps and moans escaping their lips to hover over the two lovers, and then just as unnoticeably fly away and paint the walls of the room. There was no competing here but just like in every other field of their lives where they would meet, there was mutual cooperating, mutual elevating to something higher and more pleasurable. His body, as much as his heart and mind, adored her. Sara's own body was soft, was gentle and graceful.

Oh, how he loved her.

Her hand moved forward on the bed's surface, following perhaps some path in her dream. It soon covered his and her beautiful thin fingers, brushed each vein and piece of skin of his hand as another delicate smile appeared on her face. That touch of hers would usually send a delightful shiver through Grissom's body, temporarily disturbing his inner calmness. But then, her hand faded away and soon after, her body followed. Nothing remained on the bed as the memory retrieved silently back to the deeper layers of his brain.

Grissom closed his eyes and brought his right hand over them, massaging the protective eyelids softly. The memories were triggered so easily, probably because he took care of them, not wanting them to be forgotten and disappear. "Sara," he whispered so low that only he could detect it. "I miss you, baby."

* * *

Sara's eyes opened rather quickly as if something unexpected had stung her, waking her. She glanced over at the clock on the wall. 11:15 a.m., it said. She then yawned. Giving herself decent leverage, the sleepy brunette got up and trailed over to the bathroom.

As the cold water rushed down on her warm palms, sprinkling around her, Sara sighed, waiting for the liquid to reach a certain level. When the small crate formed by her hands was full, she splashed the cool liquid onto her face and sighed in relief, as her face felt incredibly hot before, especially her cheeks and ears. Taking the soft towel, she began wiping the drops off her skin while her eyes started staring at her own image in the mirror.

While standing still with the towel in her hand, a soft kiss was planted on her shoulder, quite delicate and incredibly close to her neck. "Mm," she sounded. "Good morning," his hoarse voice shivered her body with such ease as if she herself had been nothing but a simple formation of fragile twigs so sensitive to the sound from his lips that entered through her ears and traveled down, filling each space of her pleasantly.

"Good morning," she said and turned her face to meet his with a graceful smile. The morning softness of his lips touched hers, giving her a slight regret of ever waking up and leaving the bed; but the closeness of his face with hers, allowed her to study the open blueness of his eyes and discover that he too, had regretted leaving the bed. However, there was also a shared fondness of the lovable sweetness of this morning and their nearness here in this room.

Another kiss….

"Damn… you taste really good," she chuckled in his kiss while her palms felt the rugged surface of his face where the unshaven beard had remained.

"Even more," he joked and captured her lips so she wouldn't be able to speak for a while.

Watching the two people enter in yet another quiet dance of affection, Sara put the towel down. She quickly distanced herself from the mirror, not wanting to be reminded of something so precious in the past but completely unreachable to her at the moment.

How feelings can make a sexual experience richer was just amazing; how both of them, having nothing to hide anymore, allowed themselves to be led emotionally and physically somewhere else, away from the rough reality and everything connected to it; willing to explore every trace of their bodies, to see how far they would reach, holding the tender emotions and burning needs of their beating hearts as their guides.

The numbers of pheromones released by her brain were overwhelming, traveling through her body, intoxicating her. Sara cherished this. It succeeded in making her feel beautiful, feel the final refund of her own feelings, feel loved… deeply, whole-heartedly loved, and not some superficial illusion of affection.

Sara walked over to the kitchen and filled the pot with water. Lately, she had started drinking tea; it helped her; it was refreshing. Turning on the stove, she watched the surface of the water, still struggling to achieve its level of calmness… much like Sara had been trying to do in these past few months. For some reason, it appeared hard. No, not for some, unknown reason. The separation was the reason; Grissom's absence was the reason; her _loneliness_ was the reason. Almost four months ago, their departure from each other appeared like a good idea… here, when Sara turned around to witness it again with her eyes, in her apartment, in this room.

Their hands parted with their stubborn fingers cheating a few more moments to have for themselves and not be so cruelly broken; their eyes trying to hide any emotion but failing; their lips sealed; their faces fighting desperately not to show too much of the sadness of the moment and its consequences.

At least it wasn't nasty, violent, hurtful. But regardless of the way it was handled then, it now appeared useless and perhaps even harmful.

It was good for him. It was good for her. It was wonderful with him. It felt right, beautiful, something not to be tampered with… and yet they did this… Physically, their bodies ached, even screamed for their closeness, for the feel of each other. Grissom and Sara thought it would go away, it could disappear; but it never did, nor did it ever try to. Their hearts needed each other; they found it tremendously difficult to survive on their own, something that appeared so easy in the past when Sara and Grissom were alone, not acquainted with their feelings.

Now, she wanted it back. He was her extension… what she missed, she had received from him; what Grissom was missing, he had received from her. It was mutual, it was real… it was the way it should have been when two incredibly similar people met in this way; it was extraordinary enchanting. Gil and Sara mirrored each other in togetherness and they mirrored each other in their separation.

Sara then closed her eyes and slightly jumped to the whistling noise of the boiled water. The tea was ready.

* * *

The noise from the urban pollution could easily be forgotten in here as Grissom learned the moment he came inside. It was one of those small bookstores where one can imagine sold mostly older or even, if one got lucky, rare titles. Some dust particles could be easily seen floating around by the naked eye. Not much of the space or books could be recognized due to the poor lighting and only after the person had stood a couple of inches in front of everything, could they know the shape of what they were seeing.

Grissom had managed to recognize two other customers, buried deep into their own search for the right book, and an older lady, not possibly beyond forty, sitting behind the register, checking some lists. The yellowy rays that had managed to sneak through a few cracks or thin glass, gave the bookstore a sad image. "Excuse me," Grissom approached the owner.

"Yes?" she greeted him warmly.

"Does Evelyn Presnowitz work here?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied and her warmth suddenly disappeared as another guard came into place.

Grissom expected this. "I'm Gil, her uncle. I wanted to see her," he lied.

The woman's gaze dug deeper into the man's eyes to be. Her defenses breached and she smiled. "She's usually in the renaissance literature section," she said and pointed to her right.

"Thank you," Grissom nodded politely and smiled.

After a few tricky turns, he finally reached the right alley of books. It came as a surprise to him the size of the bookstore, because its outer appearance hinted to a much smaller space. He soon found the teenager sitting down, cross-legged with a black book in her hands, and three other, slightly thicker, volumes placed on top of each other in front of her. "Evelyn?" he called her softly, as to not startle her rather unpleasantly like the previous times.

Evelyn's head shot up from the books to look at the unexpected visitor. Some strange combination of pleasantness and surprise appeared in her gaze when she recognized Grissom. She brought the book protectively closer to her chest as she hesitated whether to remain as she was or change her movement. In the end, Evelyn slowly stood up and closed the book, while holding it still between her hands.

Grissom could obviously tell that the girl was indeed happy to see him, although her excitement was of a less revealing nature. "I told her I was your uncle," he then said.

Evelyn smiled shyly. "That's why she let you in. I've worked here for four years and Isabelle has grown quite wary of strangers who'd come in to ask about me."

"I've noticed. Why though?"

"Oh, I think she might have had a talk with my mother."

"Ah. Mothers always worry."

"Yeah," Evelyn looked down at her book.

"What were you reading?" he asked and was then shown the cover. "History of Renaissance Paintings?"

Evelyn withdrew the book. "My cousin studies history of art, so I figured I'd learn something about these pieces," she said and flipped over to a page of a large painting of a young woman from that period.

"For a moment I wondered if our future biologist had found some different hobby," he said. Meeting her confused gaze, he then added, "Sara told me."

"Oh," Evelyn glanced at the now closed book. "Um, I was told to go with whatever makes me happy, so…"

"That's good advice," he said. "There aren't enough scientists out there. We need as many as we can get."

Her deep brown eyes met his again with a clear feeling of joy; perhaps she needed his opinion of approval. "Hopefully I'll turn out to be a good one… like you," she spoke, almost childishly.

"I have no doubt about that, Evelyn." He encouraged her and saw that it worked and even that it had been a much needed sign of approval for Evelyn. "You might even turn out to be better than me," he shrugged and smiled.

Evelyn's mouth hesitated no more than a second before it stretched across her face. This had been a rarely seen sight from her and Grissom appeared to be one of the very few to witness it. Her hands held onto the book tightly before she spun around to gather the remaining collections of various literature that were on the floor.

"Sara also told me about your father," he then said.

The words ceased Evelyn's original movement, causing her to abandon them and turn around to face the older man. "I…um…"

"She said I looked like him."

Pressing the two books against her chest, her eyes wandered on the floor. "You do, Mr. Grissom," she muttered.

"Sorry?"

Lifting her head up, she looked at him, her gaze to be changed once again and this time to a much sadder one. "She's right," Evelyn told him. She said nothing more; she did not wish to place an unnecessary burden on him with her life.

"Do you have a picture?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah," she replied quietly and grabbed the rucksack from the floor. Evelyn pulled out the notebook, and from it she took the photograph before handing it over to Grissom. "Here."

Taking it, Grissom's only visible reaction was that of slightly raised eyebrows. The man on the picture really did resemble him in almost every way, except for the color of the eyes. Watching yourself in a mirror could be difficult at times, looking at yourself with a child… even more difficult to form a proper thought. He experienced a brief feeling of regret for never having an opportunity to meet this man. "What was his name?" he asked.

"George."

Grissom nodded once and returned the photograph to Evelyn. He understood her reaction from the hospital in a much clearer way; then, he encountered a feeling of pity for her; to meet a person with such precise resemblance of a loved one could send her delicate soul in turmoil. There wasn't much he could do, however. "Was he a scientist as well?"

"He taught biology in high school. He… had a fascination with insects," she said and quickly picked up the remaining two books.

Grissom found another reason for her visits to his office. "Like father, like daughter," he said softly and smiled.

For the first time in his presence, Evelyn giggled. "He wanted me to have a good future. I don't want him to look down on me and be disappointed."

"He'll be quite proud of you I think. Your dad must've been a great man."

"He was; a very understanding one."

Grissom moved his lips without words. "Sara also mentioned that you were going to Ireland?"

"Yes, my… mum has relatives there. That's where my cousin is also. My mum thought spending a month there would be good for me."

"She may be right. Ireland is a beautiful country."

"Yeah. Perhaps it'll inspire me like Sara inspires you," she then said.

Grissom's look turned once again into a confused one, triggered by the teenager's unexpected sentence. Has Sara told Evelyn about them?

"I saw the picture in your office. You looked in love." Evelyn nodded. "You look beautiful together." She placed the three books in her rucksack and returned the forth one on the shelf.

Her last sentence had the softest tone, which did the same for Grissom's mood.

"You see tragedies of people you don't care about; I see tragedies of people I love. It's easy to lose someone… It's never easy to let go of them." She looked at him with hopes that he would understand her meaning.

He did. "Yeah," Grissom replied.

"Thanks for the book," she told him.

"You're very welcome, Evelyn." He nodded.

Evelyn took a step forward along with a deep breath. "Mr. Grissom… um…" she took another step.

"You don't have to call me Mr. Grissom," he told her.

Evelyn shook her head. "It's easier for me if I do," she smiled briefly and took another deep breath. She hoped her next action would not label her as a crazy person. Without another thought, Evelyn hugged Grissom. "I'm sorry. I wanted to do this."

Although once again surprised, Grissom replied only with a silent sigh and returned the embrace lightly. "That's ok," he assured her.

The frail light somehow managed to regain the original silence of this quiet space for a moment, allowing the teenager's young heart to shed a few tears after a realization that despite the physical appearance and a choice of interests, the man who she embraced wasn't her father. He was a different person.

"I'm glad I met you, Mr. Grissom," Evelyn then said.

Grissom smiled tenderly to this, and felt the embrace break. "Have a safe trip," he spoke with another dose of tenderness and touched her arm briefly.

"Thank you," she smiled back at him and watched him beginning to walk away.

"And…" he turned around, allowing his feet to continue walking backwards." Thank you again for the pin. It's in a good place next to my books at home," he said and pointed behind him before he turned around once again.

Evelyn was happy by this; he really did like her gift. "Sara was right," she then spoke, just as he was ready to take a right turn and exit that section of the store. "You are a very kind person."

Grissom kept her in his frame of sight for a while longer and responded with a beautiful curling of his lips. He then turned to his right and soon exited the store. Evelyn was a special individual indeed.

* * *

Leaving her bag on the table, Sara walked over to the kitchen where Grissom was preparing what appeared to be a normal salad.

Looking up at her, he noticed Sara's gaze being fixed on the knife and pieces of carrot that he was holding, in such a way as if they were made of diamonds. "Sara?" he called her.

Her mellow brown eyes slowly rose up and smiled while her lips didn't. "Sorry, I got carried away with some stuff," she said and stole a piece of carrot from Grissom's hand.

"I've seen that distant expression before."

Sara sighed and popped the vegetable piece in her mouth. He would read into her; she knew that he would. "I was just thinking about Evelyn."

Putting the sliced carrot pieces in the bowl, Grissom took the red towel and wiped his hands before he proceeded to the mixing of the various sliced vegetables. "You'll miss her?"

"Yeah, I probably will. You went to see her?" she asked.

He looked at her and smiled almost shyly. "Yeah… Curiosity."

"Aha. She told you about her father?" Although curiosity for the possible relation between him and Evelyn's father appeared overwhelming, she decided against it. Some things are better left untouched….

"She showed me a picture of him."

"And?" She waited.

"And… there are some similarities."

Her eyebrow slowly reached the top of her forehead. "Some?"

"Yeah, _some_."

"Try _a lot_ of similarities, Gil," she said.

Grissom stopped with his 'chore' and leaned on the counter with his hands when a sigh escaped his lips along with a swift fall of his gaze. "Yeah…" he nodded and pushed himself lightly off the stable surface. "The similarities were astonishing; that I have to admit."

Seeing his hands as they took another hold of the forks and spoons, Sara asked: "How did it feel?"

"Strange." He smirked falsely. "A thought of having someone like that out there was… well, bizarre." Grissom then sighed once again. "And…" he released the kitchen tools and held his hands open before him in mid air. His eyes traveled across the counter looking for an answer. A planned thought was about to have been released when Grissom changed his mind. "Nah," he said and waved towards her. "Never mind." He then returned to the final touches of the salad.

"What?"

"Not important."

"Gil, you know I'm going to keep bugging you if you don't tell me."

He smirked and shook his head. "You sure are a big pain when you do that."

Sara smiled briefly. "Then tell me."

"Nothing, it was only strange knowing that there had been someone who not only looked like me but happened to have similar interests."

"Only differences: the profession, marital status and a kid."

"Right."

Sara smiled. "You didn't go there just to ask about Evelyn's father, did you…"

"I wanted to wish her a safe trip," he then said.

Her smile widened. "She grew on you?"

"Hadn't known her that long for that to happen."

"But she is a nice person."

"Yeah," he nodded. "A very intelligent one. I'm pleased to see that she's not going to throw that to waste."

"True. I'm just hoping that at least something good will happen for her. Someone so young doesn't deserve so much tragedy in her life," she said.

"She's survived so far… She'll have a steady future. Only strong people have that," he said and smiled at her.

Understanding his reference, Sara circled the counter and opened the drawer where she pulled out a couple of forks. Her body soon found itself aligned with Grissom's; their arms applying steady pressure against each other.

The soft intensity of her gaze lured Grissom over to it. "Thanks," he heard her say. Observing the silent gratitude in those brown-colored eyes, he smiled gently at her; the back of his right hand rose up to her cheek, brushing it briefly but tenderly, feeling that anything stronger might appear callous. The pressure between their arms was then cut off when she distanced herself from him, taking the forks, two plates and a pair of napkins with her to the living room.

He soon followed her with the bowl in his hands. While he was putting the bowl on the coffee table, Sara had already found a comfortable spot on the couch with her left leg curled beneath her right one and her arms left loosely on the soft cushions. She glanced at the projector screen a few meters away in front of them. "I was reluctant whether to accept your invitation to the movies," she lied badly.

Sitting next to her, Grissom poured his weight onto the thick arms that rested on his knees, and looked over to her. "I felt reluctant whether to invite you in the first place." His was even worse.

The tiny gap between her pearly whites peaked shyly through the crack of her lips. The case was over, Evelyn was alright… Sara's conscious regarding Laney's case was slowly easing up. She was more than happy that Grissom invited her for a quiet night like this. Things were better. Just like old times….

"So, Wendy tells me that you actually tried to talk her into trying out bungee," she then said and reached over to take the fork and plate.

"No."

"What do you mean 'no'?"

"I mean, no, I haven't said that."

"Really…"

"Yes."

"Interesting… hmm, yeah, could be. I remember how scared you were to stand on that bridge, let alone jump 200 feet down."

"I'm too old for that stuff, Sara. I told you that."

"Oh, _Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter_," she said and handed him the full plate. "Mark Twain. You said that, didn't you?"

"Well, Mark Twain is wrong. I'm not eighteen anymore, and I certainly do mind."

"You're not 90 either."

"Voltaire was wiser: _What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy._ "

Sara shook her head and started filling up her own plate. "What happened to 'being young at heart'?"

"Who says I'm not?"

"Griss…"

"No, don't mention that plane toilet incident." Sensing she might attempt just that.

She smirked. "No reason to be ashamed. It's not your thing anymore, I know."

"Having sex in such a narrow place was fun in the past. I simply did not feel comfortable knowing that there were 90 other passengers in the plane while we were getting physically 'comfortable' in the toilet," he started giving excuses.

"Oh, don't tell me you don't like the thrill of it," Sara teased. That proposal had only been a joke back then but served as a jumping board for countless discussions afterwards. "Adrenaline rush, remember?" she said and wiggled her eyebrows.

Although faking annoyance, he could not conceal the brief chuckle. "I'm in my fifties. I do need to slow down."

"Funny how that wasn't a factor in the restaurant toilet in Tokyo," she said and started chewing her food.

"I think they put some unknown spices in the meal," he said.

"Excuses, excuses. You love the thrill, Griss, I know you do." She giggled softly and leaned back.

"I will avoid any further comment on that subject," he said which only pulled out louder giggles from Sara that soon exploded into strong laughter.

When the laughter subdued after a while, Sara said, "I haven't laughed this hard in a long time… phew."

"It's nice to hear you laugh," Grissom told her softly. "_Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face_."

"I never said I was unhappy," Sara spoke quietly with another terrible attempt in dishonesty.

Grissom did not say anything but simply smiled kindly and turned to his nearly empty plate.

"Damn you," she whispered with a small grin. What in the past was unreadable to both of them, was now as clear as a sunny day.

"You're opened up when in love, right? You can not hide things. Didn't _you_ tell me that once?" Grissom's tone was soft but playful as to hide the regret of their former separation.

"I forgot," she said. "It fells good though… being here again, with you," she could not lie anymore; she already failed at it four times.

"I know." Grissom looked at her. "Thank you for accepting my invitation," he said.

"I've missed this. So you're welcome," she told him and both exchanged another warm smile before Grissom reached for the remoter and turned on the projector.

Sara and Grissom could enjoy the silent film because they could always enjoy the comfortable silence between each other… It was as simple as that. As the title 'Wild Orchids' appeared on the screen, the lights around the two viewers went off, leaving the intimate darkness of the night to blend gently with the silence.

**THE END**

Author's note: Thank you to everyone that reviewed. Every opinion was more than welcomed, whether a compliment or criticism.


	11. Epilogue

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters from 'CSI'. They're not my property.

Note: It was decided for this little epilogue to just be placed here where it belongs. :) Thanks again for your reviews!

Also, a thank you to KatieBug for an idea placed in this story, and another special thank you to **Cybrokat**. Enjoy.

* * *

The final name on the screen appeared, and five seconds later it deteriorated, signaling the definitive ending of the movie. The screen went blank at the same when the lights were brought back.

The silence, however, remained. Grissom took a silent yet deep breath and leaned slightly on the armrest, his fingers touching the side of his face for decent leverage. Sara continued to stare meaninglessly at the, now empty, screen, her entwined fingers founding their place on her knee. The movie was over, and with it the reason for approvable silence as well.

Grissom knew that this invitation to a movie would not pass without something more. They weren't at work, and they could relax… or at least, try to. That atmosphere would certainly rip away some barriers, and force the two of them to expose topics that begged for clearance. "What did you think?" he asked her.

"Mm?" Sara quickly turned her face towards him. His words woke her up from her own silent trance without warning.

"About the film," Grissom added and quickly pointed at the empty screen.

"Oh… it was good," Sara responded. The movie had turned out to be a satisfying one; Greta Garbo gracing the screen with her own beautiful presence, giving Sara a brief feeling of envy for the physical beauty of the actress. But towards the last few minutes, Sara's thoughts escaped the attention for the movie's events, and started focusing on what might happen once the film was finished. Sure, she could have left if she wanted to but she didn't; she could've brought up some anecdote from the past, something to make Grissom and even her smile, if not laugh. Sara knew that silence was not acceptable.

Grissom nodded, perching his lips as he diverted his eyes away from Sara. Time would not be merciful on their stubborn silence nor on their attempts at some other subject.

Three months, too much time. He was too old for this; Grissom spent the majority of his adult life by himself, and he was tired of it. He certainly did not wish to greet the coming of much older age by himself. "Was worth the visit then?"

Sara nodded. "Yes, it was." Only, she did not mean the movie alone. She sighed unnoticeably. Without the tarry tension of uncertainty, this felt like old times, when Grissom would invite her twice a month for their 'movie night', with some popcorn, drinks, some other dish of choice perhaps and… a silent movie. "No wonder she was such a star."

Grissom glanced at her. "Greta Garbo?"

"Yeah. You get to light up the screen like that and…" she shrugged. "Not many actors have that 'magic' about them these days, do they?" Sara smiled softly and looked at her fingers.

His lips twisted in a softer smile. "The classics really got to you."

"Yeah. All your fault, too," she noted and crossed her arms.

"Speaking of which, Nick told me how you quoted Nietzsche some weeks ago when you found another body."

"Your fault again."

Grissom chuckled quietly. "Really…"

"Yeah! All those books you gave me! The quotations, the same ones you'd mention on more than one occasion…" Sara shook her head. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you wanted me to remember all those things."

"You did that to yourself, Sara. I merely gave you the books. You could've just… gave them to someone or, dare I even think about it, threw them away."

"Maybe."

"You couldn't stand bugs in the past. Now look at you! Not a lover of them but at least you took some interest in them, which I was more than happy to see."

Sara laughed at herself. "Guess so."

"Remember the Cranos case?"

"Oh, please don't." Sara covered her face and shook her head.

"When I was absent from the lab, and you solved the case because…."

"Stooop!" Sara hated him for reminding her of that case, partly because of one incident that involved her hand being dipped in a glass cage filled with cockroaches.

"Because you knew about Gromphadorhina portentosa."

"It's not like they can't be bought at your local pet store."

"No one else working on the case knew that did they?"

Sara tilted head from one side to the other. She smiled. "Nick's expression was priceless when Sandy hissed at him." She giggled. "He thought she would squirt some poison at him or something."

" Sandy?"

Sara cleared her throat. "Yeah."

"You named it?"

"Well… um, yeah. Yes, I did," she said and nodded.

Grissom was pleasantly surprised to this. "Interesting. Shame that you didn't keep it as a pet after the investigation was over." He leaned closer to Sara.

"I would've, but someone decided to play a sick joke and whack it with stick."

Grissom sighed. "Ah, yeah. People can be incredibly cruel for what they don't understand."

"So sad but true."

"May she rest in peace."

"Mm."

"Nick told me he was pretty cool when he saw Sandy."

Sara looked at him. "And you didn't believe him?"

"No."

"Then you were right. He walked in, saw her; 'Big bug,' he said, and… He didn't even know she was a cockroach!" Sara giggled again. "Then Greg came and mentioned something how he had a friend who kept hissing cockroaches as pets. It was _then_ that Nick eased up a little bit."

Grissom smiled. "I would've liked to have seen that."

"It was a good one." Sara's grinned.

"Although no longer your supervisor… good work on that case."

"Although no longer your subordinate… thanks."

Then silence fell over them once more. It would come out, eventually it would happen. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" Sara said, referring to the last time they shared a subtle conversation like this away from work.

"Longer than needed," he replied.

Sara took a deeper breath. "You know what I was thinking about before I came here?"

"What?"

"Our conversation after the Leraredo case."

Grissom's gaze softened in the middle as a gentle sigh escaped him. The separation had proved difficult for her after all.

* * *

They were sitting on a bench after another case had been done and solved. It had been one of those homicide investigations where something, some clue, or statement would inevitably resemble something of either Grissom's or Sara's inner thoughts about themselves. And like each case of such nature, this one would leave more thoughts to linger in their minds; finding some new subjects, answers… anything.

It was four in the morning when they sat there, just the two of them. They felt tired. It had been a long case. "He killed his wife because he didn't want to share her with anyone… huh, now that's an excuse…"

"In other words, he took the adultery thing pretty harshly."

"No kidding. It never ceases to amaze me what people do in the so-called 'name of love'."

"Sadly, in this case it wasn't about love."

Sara knew he was right but she decided to try anyway. "You think?" Those words were incredibly close to sarcasm.

"It's dripping from those words like honey, Sara."

He noticed.

"Excellent observation," she noted.

"It isn't hard to miss," Grissom said.

Sara glanced at him. "Maybe he did love her."

"You call that 'love'?"

Sara smirked. "You wouldn't?" she tried again.

"No."

"Ok then. How would you know?"

"That's possessiveness, not love."

"Coming from a man who's never been in love, I'm not sure how right you are." She would pretend she hadn't witnessed his speech; Sara would be cold here, or try to be.

Grissom looked away, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees. "_For one human being to love another that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof; the work for which all other work is but preparation…_"

His voice was soft, almost frail. Sara recognized that tone as it reminded her of the tone she heard at the other side of the mirror… by herself. "And you know this how?" she tried to keep it casual. It was failing…

Grissom shrugged. "Because you don't realize it 'till you actually get there."

"And have you been there?"

Grissom glanced at her. His head turned and he stared in front of him; the cold air was warning him to make their stay here short. He then leaned back and looked at her. Grissom liked looking at her like this, with no one else around; it was supposed to be so much simpler this way; Their shoulders and their nearness signaling just how close Grissom and Sara had actually been sitting next to each other. Must've been a small bench. "Have you read Tolstoy?" he asked her.

"No," she replied.

The blueness in his eyes darkened; the stare intensified, though not as much as to cause fear. "_He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began_," Grissom quoted. "What does that sound to you like?" he then asked.

Sara swallowed hard. Did Grissom just admit to her, in her face, what Sara thought he had? "What should it sound like?"

"I asked you first."

Sara took her time. The closeness should have choked her to such a degree that she should have wanted to run away as farther as possible. Only… it did no such thing now. Instead, it asked her to stay, and Sara complied. "Like the male character in the story was in love with the woman he spoke about?" She liked his closeness.

Grissom kept her gaze there for a moment longer before his eyes fell on her right hand. He soon took it in his own, squeezing it gently. He looked up at her. She was even more beautiful when her guard had been down. "You're a good observer," he told her and brought his left hand to her cheek. Brushing the back of his hand against her cheek, he smiled briefly. "Extremely good," he whispered and lowered his hand.

He did. He admitted to her what Sara secretly wished would happen sometime in the very distant future… "I'm not a good CSI for nothing." Her smile was soft but brief as his. She was feeling nervous. Sara expected that, even though she had ordered herself timelessly before to ban such ridiculous feelings. Little did she know that it had been beyond difficult.

"You're among the best," Grissom told her.

Then the colder silence shut down everything around them, and nothing except for the delicate wind was allowed to be heard around them as the eyes took hold of each other, reading everything that they could from one another. They understood.

"Does the offer still stand?" he asked.

"Which one?"

"About dinner… and…"

"The new life?"

His stare shook. Her question took him aback.

"I heard."

"From who?"

"I was there…" she whispered.

The other side… of course; he should have known. It silenced him for a while. She knew… How did that affect her? How did she look at him after that? What where her thoughts, even her feelings? Was he simply a nervy coward in her eyes, running away from something that he should have faced instead? Or did she somehow manage to understand his fear? So many questions, but with answers that could be fulfilled at a later time. Right now, this revelation… It gave awkwardness to the moment, but at least she understood what he had meant earlier.

"The dinner… yes, it's still there. The new life…" Sara sighed and released her hand from his. "We'll see," she said and stood up.

Watching her walk away from him, Grissom remained where he was. He did not expect to hear her confession or express his feelings now, tonight, in these moments, but at least he had anticipated her reaction.

* * *

"I should've known you'd make it extremely hard for me to finally catch up with you," Grissom told her.

"Well, you deserved it, you know!"

"Eh, maybe. But you almost killed me at times."

"Hey, I'm only returning the favors," she told him. "And… since we're springing out so many damn quotes, wasn't it Shakespeare who said that _the course of true love never did run smooth_?"

"A Midsummer Night's Dream, yes." That quite had signaled another topic, one that had to appear tonight sooner or later.

"And jealousy can be very nasty…"

"Yes, it can." Grissom shivered when one of the reasons for their separation was brought up. Daniel was a good CSI from dayshift, a very friendly young man with Sara. There was nothing else apart from that friendship, but it only proved Grissom's sensitivity and even insecurity of his older age. His questions, implications, and at times strange suspicions had increased to that point that it had become necessary for some space to open between him and Sara again. "Have you seen him?" he asked.

"Daniel? No. He moved to Boston about a month ago."

"Oh."

"Which is, I guess, good news for you."

"It's a shame; he was a good criminalist… had he been working the nightshift instead."

Sara watched his calm reaction. Oh, she knew he was pleased. "Griss… I didn't run after you so much, for so long in the past just to have you, and then leave you just like that," she told him and saw him look up at her.

"I passed my youth."

"So?"

"So, it does mess with your mind when someone young and beautiful admires you in a way that could set something to bare actual love in the end."

"You're not old, Gil."

"I'm not young…"

"Please, not with the age issue again… it certainly didn't matter when we were together."

"You didn't let me finish, Sara… I'm not young without you… With you… it's another story."

That had been another compliment Sara hadn't heard before. It felt pleasant.

"I liked not feeling old… or as much, while with you." He paused. "I'd like you to get it back, if possible."

Sara sat there, once again, speechless. This allowed her hand to talk when it reached his cheek, her fingers wanting to touch it; the wanting to trigger her bravery to allow her to feel the skin, its warmth, its rugged surface.

It came only an inch apart, the fingertips being drawn to that tender surface like a tiny bee to a flower. It was so tempting. She glanced at his lips. Her hand fell. Sara did not touch his face. "We can try," she told him softly and brought her head closer to his. "If you let me… and trust me."

"I want to," he responded. His fingers touched her chin; they were braver. "But I'm not apologizing for that time in the office…"

"I didn't realize an apology was needed."

His lips curled. "So, when should we start repairing stuff?"

They were so close. "How does 'now' sound?"

"Sounds perfect," he spoke and breathed softly into her before finally closing the narrowing gap between their lips.

They found each other again.


End file.
